Ring of Truth
by Evalyn A
Summary: Fix the finale fic ... it's canon, but let's not let that stop us ...
1. Chapter 1

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's, not mine, though they don't deserve it.

A/N: It is assumed that although the overall historical events of TATV did happen, the moment-by-moment details of the events, as well as the personal interactions, would not have been part of the historical record. Therefore, the Enterprise-D holodeck recreation was a dramatization, fabricated as needed to make a better story. And hopefully, I have made an even better story than the one they came up with.

********

Chapter One.

T'Pol paused on the deck outside her mother's house, inherited by her nearly seven years ago on her mother's death. The house remained in pristine condition, maintained by a gentle couple that had long been her mother's neighbours and friends.

So much had changed since then, and yet her mother's house remained an oasis of calm, unchanged. She unlocked the door and entered. The furniture remained positioned just as it had been, and one of the neighbours, T'Rel she suspected, had placed some fresh fruit and vegetables in a bowl on the table, just as her mother would have. It was as though T'Les had just stepped out to the garden, or the shop, planning to return to greet her daughter after her long absence.

This was her first real return to her family home since … she mentally shied away from reliving that time, the visit in which she had first truly accepted to herself her feelings for Commander Tucker, when she had begun to suspect the depth of his feelings, and when she had married her long-time betrothed Koss, not long before her mother's death in the conflict now termed by the humans the Vulcan Civil War. T'Pol felt her emotions rising to the surface; she distracted herself by going to her bedroom and unpacking her travel bag. She then wandered to the kitchen and found a selection of food in the stasis unit. She pulled out some _kelthar_ beans, sliced up _tavro_ root, and prepared to place them in the cooking unit to stew. Dissatisfied with the results, she decided to explore further – had her mother's herb garden survived the years?

Opening the back door, she contemplated the serenity of the small, partly shaded garden area in the failing evening light. A light warm breeze had begun to blow, alleviating some of the day's unforgiving heat. Flowering _pan'tolt_ herbs straggled across the top of a small planter, while a number of other flavourful succulents snuggled underneath. The neighbours had not neglected this area either. She selected a sample of ingredients that she had not tasted fresh in many years, and turned to re-enter the house.

At that moment, the long shadow of a figure cast across her feet. Startled, she turned, and then calmed herself, acknowledging with a nod the individual waiting across the yard at the garden entrance.

"It is good to see you again, Koss."

"And you, T'Pol."

"You knew I would be here," she inferred.

"T'Rel informed me that you would be returning for a visit, although she did not know exactly when you would arrive. I stopped by on my evening walk to welcome you."

"It is kind of you." Particularly, she thought, given their decidedly uneasy relationship over the years – first, her postponement of their marriage, then marrying and divorcing within the space of a few months.

"I have always enjoyed your company, T'Pol," he replied, adding with a dry look, "Even when the feeling was not mutual." She glanced away, unsure of how to reply, and deciding on candour, looked at him earnestly.

"It was not you, Koss. You should know that."

He nodded. "I know." He paused, and with a touch of wistfulness, he reiterated her words, changing their meaning. "It was not I. That much was obvious." After an awkward pause, he continued briskly, "But that was many years ago. I simply wished to ask if you could make the time to tell me, and perhaps a few others, of some of your recent adventures before you depart again."

She considered him in surprise. They had never known each other well, and this was a side of him she had not suspected. "It would be my pleasure," she replied candidly. "There are still few Vulcans who show an interest in other worlds, even now that it is clear that our future must be tied to the Federation."

"We are a people with a long oral tradition, T'Pol," Koss replied. "It is a facet of our culture that is often overlooked in this age. I believe that all the members of our community would benefit from hearing the stories you have to tell. And now I will leave you be, you must be tired from your journey. I will expect your call when you are ready."

She inclined her head, and watched him depart. She rolled the fragrant _pan-tolt_ flowers between her fingers, inhaling their scent, and then returned indoors to continue her meal preparation, mildly perplexed by the encounter.

********

It was three weeks into her visit, and as she walked with Koss on the path that ran beside the local shrine, she realized with some surprise that she had spent seven of the last 14 days in his company. He was, to her surprise, a witty, inquisitive, gentle companion, surprisingly welcome in this visit in which she had expected largely solitude and introspection.

"I am glad to see your sister's family so well," she commented. "Her children are quite extraordinary." It was true, Koss' sister T'Zahan had two children, one ten and one seven Earth years of age, with extraordinary disciplined and talented minds. The youngest, a girl, was just the age Elizabeth would have been … she pulled her thoughts back to listen to Koss.

"They are most satisfactory," Koss agreed. "I would hope to have such a successful marriage." A long silence fell while she considered his statement uneasily. He remained unwed seven years after he had terminated their marriage.

Impulsively, T'Pol decided to breach protocol. "You remain unwed. Are you betrothed?"

He contemplated her with a look, which to the expert Vulcan eye trained in the smallest nuances of expression, contained a carefully cultivated combination of exasperation and amusement. "Why should that information be of interest to you?"

She tipped her head at the implied rebuke, but persisted. "Given that you released me from our marriage, I feel a certain responsibility for your welfare. I am well aware that you took that decision because of my shortcomings as a wife. I am also aware that you were considering my … feelings … at the time as much as your own."

Koss shook his head dismissively, but avoided her gaze. "That was years ago. It is of no consequence now."

"It is of consequence if it has somehow affected your desire to wed another. It cannot be long before the decision will be made for you …" she left the reference to his first _pon farr_, which was surely overdue, and the possible consequences to him if he was unbonded at the time, discreetly vague.

"It is true that I must find a mate in the near future. Nevertheless, this is an issue that I must deal with, and nothing for which you need feel responsible."

She viewed him gravely. "But I am responsible. Whether or not my responsibility implies the need for compensation is an entirely different issue." She paused, and suddenly, felt compelled to continue. "I too am unbonded. Surely, under the circumstances, we could reach some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement."

Koss looked at her, clearly both startled and sceptical to the trained Vulcan eye. Before he could speak further, she continued.

"I know we are not, nor likely never will be, _katra'katelau_, Koss." T'Pol paused briefly, suppressing the inner ache for the soulmate that Koss was not. "Nevertheless, I have found over the last weeks that we have a mutual respect that would contribute greatly to a rewarding relationship."

"I do not believe that you have thought this through, T'Pol," Koss remonstrated gently. "This is a lifetime commitment of which you speak. The last time we were to be wed, you were not available to live with me for the customary year – and you are once again scheduled to depart on an Earth vessel in a few weeks. Would this time be any different?"

T'Pol had to admit the logic of his statement. Nevertheless, she felt a very real obligation to this man, who had saved her life and released her from their marriage seven years ago, with no clear benefit accruing to him as a result. She gazed at him unblinkingly, and then stated formally in the ancient manner, "Koss, would you do me the honour of renewing our _koon'ul_?"

Strict Vulcan rules of etiquette prevailed in this situation, despite their unusual relationship. Renewal of betrothal was a ritual that frequently occurred when two individuals had been betrothed at a young age, and wished to reaffirm their vows prior to marriage. At a minimum, a formal declaration of renewal was incumbent upon him upon her request, and the most polite option was in fact to set a date for the exchanging of their marriage vows. If he denied her, she had recourse to a number of options, including, should she choose, the _kali'fi_.

"You do not make this easy, T'Pol."

"That has never been the nature of our relationship, Koss," she acknowledged. "I do not expect that to change. But the respect I feel for you is strong, and marriages have been founded on much less."

A slight frown furrowed his brow, and he turned away to contemplate the horizon. She stood quietly, motionlessly, allowing him the time he needed to consider her offer.

She closed her eyes, and listened to the rustle of the dry breeze through the desert grasses, and the chirp of the six-winged iridescent hoppers that flew from rock to rock. Her soul felt a great peace in this place of her youth, so different from the turmoil she experienced every day she spent surrounded by humans, and she allowed her mind to drift.

After a time – perhaps five minutes, or ten – he turned back to her. "I feel my judgement in this situation is not, perhaps, as sound as it should be," Koss began. "But despite the fact that our marriage was most surely not a success the last time, I feel the desire to try again. I also feel that I will likely regret this decision."

Her heart tightened, and for a moment, she wondered, how could she consider this union, when her soul remained committed to another, three months dead? But reason overcame her weakness, and she asserted, "I will do all in my power to ensure that you will not have reason to regret our union, Koss."

He examined her, critically and expressionlessly. "Very well. I propose our union to proceed six _t'veda_ from today."

She nodded, her heart racing at his acquiescence. Six days, one week. Not long to prepare.

"However, as part of the ceremony, I wish to become your _telsu_."

She started visibly at this request. Until recently, the art of forming the true marriage bond, one that united both body and mind of the two betrothed, had been lost. However the recovery of the _Kir'Shara_, Surak's teachings, had brought many ancient customs back into use. It was perhaps somewhat ironic that Koss had been instrumental in saving her, helping to return the _Kir'Shara_ to the Vulcan people, and that as a result he could ask for the _telan_ with her – the _telan_ that she had once before achieved, all unknowing, with Commander Tucker.

T'Pol contemplated him gravely, for a long moment, and then bent her head in acquiescence. "I agree."

He managed to disguise his reaction well. She could not tell if he was pleased, relieved, or surprised by her response. He continued, "I will make the arrangements and will keep you informed. I believe there will be no difficulty. You will need to arrange for someone to act as your _ko-mekh_."

She nodded. The role played by the elder Vulcan female, giving away the daughter, could not be filled this time by her mother. She had an elderly fore-mother's sister that could probably be convinced to assist. Otherwise, it was not unknown to ask one of the _reldai_ to fill in. And she would need some clothing other than her dress uniform. Otherwise, she would need little preparation. After all, she had wed Koss once before, and could be considered experienced.

*******

The elderly priest droned on in ancient Vulcan of the meaning of their union. Her second fore-mother's sister was nodding in her chair, clearly unimpressed by the solemnity of the occasion. Koss' parents were both standing off to one side, their expressions clearly indicating how sceptical they were of the whole endeavour. Suddenly, T'Pol became aware that the priest had paused, and that something of importance was about to ensue.

"It is now time to make the _telan_. As it was in the time of Surak, and will ever be, we unite these two people, in mind, in body, and in soul. Step forward, my children."

She forced her feet to move forward, and her hand to take that of her husband-to-be.

The priest turned them to face one another. As they had been instructed, T'Pol and Koss each placed their right hands on the locations spanning the temple to the jaw of their betrothed. The priest, meanwhile, placed his two hands on top of their heads, and intoned, "_Kal-tor nash-kal'i'farr__ nam-tor veh t'kashkau eh katra._" She felt an odd pressure, as the priest worked to open the pathways of the mind to permit the bond to be formed between them. She felt her mind begin to open, her soul to expand, and she sensed the presence of the priest and of Koss as the bond began to knit.

Then, suddenly, there was a jabbing pain in her head, and in her heart. T'Pol gasped as though pierced by red-hot metal, her hand clutching to her searing chest. She sank to her knees, the golden robe that she wore grinding into the sand beneath her.

The priest's hands withdrew from them both as though stung. He stared with poorly disguised alarm at her, grasping his palms together to still their shaking. He turned to the _reldai_ that was assisting at the ceremony, and the two conferred in frantic whispers. Koss turned to her, his expression concerned and worried as he sensed her pain.

"T'Pol," he murmured urgently. "Are you unwell? What has happened?"

She shook her head, numbly, as the pain continued washing over her in gradually decreasing waves. "I do not know … I do not know," she repeated, unable yet to formulate coherent thought.

After completing his hurried conference, the priest turned back to them. "I cannot continue the ceremony as asked," he explained, looking as shocked and irritated as a normally expressionless priest could permit himself.

"Why not? Explain," Koss demanded, his emotions clearly close to the surface. "Why is T'Pol injured?"

"The ceremony cannot continue because T'sai T'Pol cannot be _telik_."

Cannot be bonded? T'Pol shook her head, trying to regain her composure as the pain subsided. "I do not understand. I am not incapable of bonding," she asserted. That was surely true, for she had been bonded once before.

"I should have been clearer. You cannot undergo the _telan_ with S'haile Koss when you are already _telik_ to another." He stared at her severely, clearly expecting an explanation.

She stared at the priest, momentarily speechless. "That is impossible," she managed after a moment. "How could I be?" She turned to Koss, and continued, "I do not understand. There is no other."

The priest continued to regard her seriously. "If you know you are capable of bonding, you must have a reason. Have you bonded before?"

She gazed at him, and steeled herself for the conversation that was about to ensue. "Yes, I have. It was – not deliberate. And he … my bondmate," _my k'hat'n'dlawa_, she voiced to herself, "—is dead."

The priest shook his head, sceptically. "You are bonded, T'sai T'Pol," he reiterated, "and while much knowledge has been lost, the _Kir'shara_ is clear: such bonds do not survive death. Further, with the strength of the bond I felt in you, I believe that if your husband were dead, so would you be," he explained gently, as if to a child, as she shook her head disbelievingly. "Your husband is not dead."

_He is not dead_. The words, inconceivable as they were, had the ring of truth. They expressed that sense she had felt for the previous months, that if he had died, she would have _felt_ it, her heart at war with her head. And yet surely, it was impossible. He was dead. She shook her head.

The priest turned to Koss, and continued, "I regret, this ceremony cannot continue. Please give my best regards to your second fore-mother when you next see her." He bowed to all the gathered relatives, who watched with disbelief as he turned to depart the ceremonial grounds with the assisting priestess.

T'Pol pulled herself up off the ground and, after a brief, apologetic glance at Koss, hurried after him. "Honoured one," she implored, "Please, I must speak further with you." She drew him aside, away from the on-lookers. "There must be some mistake. My _sa-telsu_ was not of our people. Perhaps that is why the bond did not end when he died."

The priest shook his head, disbelievingly, reluctantly. "You could form the _telun_ with an off-worlder? This is most strange." He turned again to the priestess accompanying him. Unlike the priest, she contemplated T'Pol with a clinically interested expression.

"How long ago did he die, young one?" she asked, gently.

"Three months only, honoured one," she replied. "But I have not felt the bond for six years."

The priestess motioned her into the small temple that adjoined the area. T'Pol followed her, the priest trailing behind, his body language clearly indicating disapproval.

The _reldai_ motioned her to sit in a small, stone chair, in an office at the back of the temple, and pulled another up opposite her. After seating herself, she reached out again to place her right hand on T'Pol's face in the same pressure points the priest had used. After some moments, she withdrew her hand, and considered T'Pol.

"I grieve with thee," she stated. "Your belief that he is dead is real. The bond may have been dormant, child, but it is strong. Too strong to be severed without serious damage to your mind. I do not see how, if he were truly dead, the bond could persist. Perhaps you are right, perhaps his human nature, or the fact that the bond was not active, meant that his death did not touch the bond. We have no experience with such things," she admitted. "A priest of the time of Surak would have had the skills. But we only begin to learn them again."

"So there is nothing you can do?" T'Pol queried, simultaneously afraid and oddly relieved by the priestess' words.

"Nothing," the _reldai_ replied. "Perhaps it is just too soon, perhaps the bond will disappear by itself." She stood, the interview clearly over. "You have my best wishes, young one."

T'Pol stood, and bowed her head in respect, replying, "My thanks for your assistance."

She turned to depart, but as she reached the door of the temple, the priestess called after her. "T'sai T'Pol." She turned.

"You must see if he lives, young one. Until you know, we can do nothing. Find if he lives."

T'Pol stared at the priestess, and then nodded, stiffly, before returning to the ceremonial grounds. The on-lookers had all discreetly departed, except for her second fore-mother's sister, who continued to doze in her chair. Koss stood where she had left him, awaiting her return.

She approached him, unsure where to begin. "They do not know. Perhaps the bond survived because he was human. Perhaps it will fade with time." She looked into his eyes, and said with full sincerity, "Koss, I do not begin to know how to offer recompense. Had I had any idea …" she paused, at a loss for words.

He tilted his head, and a small, sad smile crossed his lips. "I understand, T'Pol. I gave you up once before, because I could feel your attachment to your life on Enterprise, and that you could not belong on Vulcan. I did not know of him, but I could tell … there was something." He turned away from her, and placed his hands within the sleeves of his ceremonial robe. "I envy you."

Her heart ached for this man – decent, honourable, who had once again offered himself to her only to find himself rejected. She searched her soul for a solution, and steeled herself. "I would still marry you, Koss, without the _telun_. Our people have wed this way for hundreds of years."

He turned back to her. "Your offer is honourable, T'Pol. But I could not be your husband knowing that your _katra_ was not mine. I could not do it then, and I cannot do it now. And I know now that it is not what you want. You do not believe he is dead."

She stared at him. "That is not true. I saw him buried."

He shook his head. "Come back to me when your heart believes what your eyes saw. Good-bye, T'Pol." He touched her cheek briefly, his eyes expressing what his words could not. She watched mutely as he walked slowly, finally disappearing beyond the temple.

TBC …


	2. Chapter 2

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's, not mine, though they don't deserve it.

A/N: It is assumed that although the overall historical events of TATV did happen, the moment-by-moment details of the events, as well as the personal interactions, would not have been part of the historical record. Therefore, the Enterprise-D holodeck recreation was a dramatization, fabricated as needed to make a better story. And hopefully, I have made an even better story than the one they came up with.

********

Chapter 2.

T'Pol paced the living area of her mother's house.

That part of her logical, scientific mind that was still able to function despite the shock, turned over the questions. Could her bond with Trip, apparently dead for years, have itself survived his death? Or … and here she found her heart pounding each time she thought the question … was it possible he was still alive?

At first glance, the latter question was ridiculous. And yet, if she applied herself logically to the question, all of her knowledge of Trip's death was indirect, inferred.

They had been told of the encounter with the alien boarding party, that Commander Tucker had died saving the Captain's life. No one but Phlox, and presumably the Captain – she realized didn't actually know – had seen his body. It had been badly burned, and had been cremated.

She, along with the rest of the crew, had attended the memorial service held on Earth the day after the signing of the Charter – there along with his shattered parents and his remaining family. The tears shed by his family had been copious, and undoubtedly real. They undoubtedly believed he was dead, as did most of his grieving crewmates.

And yet, in truth, she had sleepwalked through the service. Koss' statements resonated. She had not truly believed.

And if they were, in fact, still bonded after seven years, would she not have felt his death? Have known it to be true? The death of a bondmate is the most shattering experience possible for a Vulcan; it was said temporary insanity or even death could result when the bond was strong enough, as the priest had suggested.

But she had felt no sign of the bond over many years. She stopped her pacing and gazed out towards the fire plains in the distance, remembering the connection she and Trip had shared there, the connection that she had repudiated to marry Koss and save her mother's honour.

Their daughter Elizabeth's death had been the final blow to their burgeoning relationship. After the shock had begun to wear off, she had reacted with apparent cool dispassion and logic. Their relationship was illogical, causing nothing but grief, and must be terminated. She had never again allowed him into her space, had pushed him away till there was no sign of their connection remaining.

But it had not been logic. It had been fear, she admitted, fear pure and simple. For every time she grew closer to him, hurt and pain was the result, till she felt she could no longer bear the emotional strain, and would crack and fail, as she had twice before. She still fought to suppress the memories of the time spent purging the emotion, the guilt, after she had killed a man – a man who, to this day, she did not know for certain was guilty of the appalling crimes of which he had been accused. And then there had been the Trellium – that had left her weak, dependent, out of control, risking herself and others.

So finally, after Elizabeth's death, she had determined that she must find her strength within herself, that she could no longer cope with the confusion that their need for each other engendered. She had found that strength, but had found it at the expense of all they had shared. And now she wondered, had the price she had paid been worth all she had sacrificed? Surely it had, and yet …

Even after their relationship had been severed, she still sometimes knew without looking when he entered a room, still knew without asking when he was angry, or sad, or frustrated, or full of joy. At times, it seemed he could still read her thoughts. She recalled their last real conversation on the shuttle, just before his death. He had read her uncertainties and had answered her with what she needed. What had he said? She paused in her recollection. His words came back to her. "I promise you, T'Pol, that whatever happens, we won't lose touch." It was ironic, given that his death had ensued a few hours later.

She considered his words further. There had been a strange emphasis he had placed on his statement, as if he was anxious to reassure her against some eventuality that she had not even expressed. She stood transfixed. Had he known? Had he been aware of his imminent apparent death?

Suddenly, an _amaraka_ bird launched itself from the trellis on which it had landed in the garden outside the window, and broke her reverie as it called out its sad _skree-ah_, departing.

She shook her head. No need for fanciful re-interpretation of events. Stick with verifiable facts. Assume that he was not dead. There were two possibilities she could imagine that were at least less unlikely than the others.

One: his death had been staged by some outside agency, in order to remove him permanently from Enterprise with no one the wiser. Two: instead of an outside agency, it was Starfleet, or some faction of it, that had managed the charade.

She considered the first possibility. Phlox had been fooled once before by a simulacrum of Ensign Mayweather replicated by the repair station they had encountered just after the Romulan minefield. Had it not been for Phlox's recognition of the unusual behaviour of the micro-organisms in Mayweather's blood, the abduction would have gone unrecognized, and his death accepted by all.

Perhaps this time around, there had been no such indicators, and a replicated corpse had been left at the scene of the apparent struggle. There had been no witnesses to Tucker's death, Archer having lain unconscious in the hall a few feet away.

So if Tucker had in fact been abducted and removed from Enterprise, what further could she hope to learn? The security logs had been screened repeatedly for information on their attackers, there was surely no additional information there. She supposed she could spend time searching through their mission logs looking for some group that might stand to benefit from this particular ruse.

T'Pol shook her head. This line of investigation, although possible, seemed rather unlikely to yield quick answers. And while Vulcan patience when faced with a puzzle such as this was legendary, she admitted that it was not possible for her to view this as a simple puzzle. There was too much at stake.

Almost against her will, she recalled Koss' expression earlier that day, as he departed the scene of their disastrous marriage ceremony. Her chest tightened. And then, even more unwillingly, she recalled Tucker's face as she had finally, firmly, pushed him away, leaving each of them to grieve for their daughter alone. She thought he had, in the end, felt the same as she, that their relationship was too risky, the rewards too few and the failures too hard to bear. Surely the pain of the path they had taken from then on had been less that that which had led up to it.

She firmly pushed her thoughts back to her analysis of the second scenario, in which Starfleet was responsible for Tucker's disappearance and apparent death.

The how was not so very difficult to imagine if one suspended disbelief. The only evidence of the intruder involvement was the testimony of three of Enterprise's senior officers and some ship's logs, easily altered by the individuals involved. The alien corpses, like Tucker's, had been scorched into non-recognition, and their vessel had been unseen by anyone. Only sensor logs existed, Reed having produced them `immediately after the fact as evidence of the vessel. Reed could have faked the readings, or Archer could have fabricated them for Reed to find; he had the command override codes and the knowledge – particularly if Starfleet was behind it all helping him out.

Her pacing had taken her to her bedroom. She squinted out the side window, through the pebbled panes of glass, at the shadows falling across the desert outside the house as Vulcan's scorching sun fell toward the horizon.

Phlox, Archer, and possibly Reed, colluding to fabricate Tucker's death. There had been something out of true about the days that followed his death, a sour chord continually struck. She would find Archer preoccupied with the ship's decommissioning activities, and acting as though the senseless, sudden, death of one of his dearest friends had not just occurred, or was of little matter. Phlox, after an initial period of sobriety lasting perhaps two days, had subsequently appeared as relentlessly cheerful as ever. As for Reed, she had encountered him flirting with a young ensign less than three days after the memorial service.

Perhaps Phlox, Archer and Reed were simply unable to absorb the event, just as she had been. Or, perhaps, they simply found maintaining the pretence of his death too difficult.

If this scenario was true, then there were at least two people, perhaps three, of her close acquaintance who knew that Tucker was not dead. Here was a clear path to follow. She straightened her shoulders, her spirits suddenly lifting purposefully.

She still had three weeks of leave left, time she had latterly planned to spend with Koss on Vulcan. That clearly being out of the question now, she turned definitively toward her closet, pulled out her travel bag, and began to pack.

TBC …


	3. Chapter 3

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's, not mine, though they don't deserve it.

A/N: It is assumed that although the overall historical events of TATV did happen, the moment-by-moment details of the events, as well as the personal interactions, would not have been part of the historical record. Therefore, the Enterprise-D holodeck recreation was a dramatization, fabricated as needed to make a better story. And hopefully, I have made an even better story than the one they came up with.

********

Chapter 3.

As T'Pol entered Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, her current feeling of focused anticipation upon arrival at the glassy complex contrasted thoroughly with her last visit. She had difficulty even recalling many of the details: the debriefing sessions, the formalities associated with the signing of the charter, and of course, the memorial service. Much of that time had passed by in a meaningless blur, and she had been relieved to make her escape to Vulcan.

She paused to reflect on the aesthetics of her surroundings, helping to suppress the nervous anxiety that threatened to surface. The weather in San Francisco was beautiful for once, a warm breeze blowing over the water of the Bay, and the mid-day sun reflected in the rippled water and the glass of the building. After a moment collecting her thoughts, she entered through the main doors.

The guard recognized her immediately, there being few Vulcans who had business with Starfleet, and none as famous within these walls as she. He nodded respectfully as she passed him, without asking for her ID or destination. Archer had probably already alerted them to her arrival.

Archer and Phlox were somewhere within the facility awaiting her, having both agreed to join her for lunch today. Archer was temporarily assigned to headquarters to be groomed for his promotion to come shortly. Phlox was on Earth renewing old acquaintances made through the Interspecies Medical Exchange, while giving a series of seminars on the many issues of medical interest that had been encountered on their voyage. He had just returned to San Francisco from Tokyo the night before; she supposed there were advantages to hibernating every few months, as the Denobulan would arrive refreshed after the eight hour trip without the need to adjust his circadian rhythms. The last suspect of the threesome, Lt. Reed, was on leave visiting his parents. This left her free to maintain her focus on Archer and Phlox, as the two most likely to have been involved in any conspiracy.

She had considered carefully her approach to them: was it better to speak to them singly, or together? To confront them immediately, or to lull them into believing that this was purely a social occasion before moving to the attack?

She had decided that the best approach was to see them together, in a benign social setting, in which situation conversation would naturally turn to their crewmates. It would be easy to divert the topic to Trip. While singly Archer and Phlox might maintain the fiction well, together they could make some false move, or exchange some uncomfortable glances, something that would give her a wedge to follow in. Her suspicion that the two of them knew more than they were saying was even stronger now than they had been, following the events of the past few days.

*******

She had contacted Trip's mother upon her arrival at spacedock in Earth orbit three days ago. Aline Tucker had behaved quite differently than she had at their first meeting just prior to the memorial service, when T'Pol and Archer had brought them Trip's effects. On that occasion, Trip's mother had been distraught with grief, and had clearly found it difficult to even be civil to them, while his father had been formal, polite, and distant, hardly interacting with them except in monosyllabic responses to Archer's expressions of sympathy. The couple, clearly devastated, had seemed to hardly even notice her presence.

This time, however, Trip's mother had appeared touched and pleased by T'Pol's call.

"It's so kind of you, my dear, to want to speak with us," Aline Tucker said. "I'm sorry I wasn't myself the last time you were here. Do you suppose you might be able to stop by sometime soon? I know Charlie would love to see you too."

T'Pol inclined her head in gratitude at the invitation. "I should be pleased, Mrs. Tucker. However, my leave may be shortened by urgent matters that have arisen," she fabricated with aplomb. "My only free days will be tomorrow and the day after, would either be convenient?"

Trip's mother looked momentarily startled, but recovered with a look of genuine pleasure. "We'd be delighted to see you tomorrow. Have you made plans for the night? Would you be able to stay?"

T'Pol's heart warmed at the unexpected welcome she had received, and she felt distinct discomfort at her manipulations. Nevertheless, she accepted the invitation, with gratification at the ease with which she had gained audience with Trip's parents.

Her welcome upon arrival at their home had been no less heartfelt. Trip's mother and father had both been at the door waiting as she arrived by groundcar at 1400 hours, as scheduled. Charlie Tucker had gallantly insisted on carrying her overnight bag, despite the fact that she could likely have thrown him over the hood of the groundcar with impunity.

T'Pol stopped on the porch of their home to glance out at the pleasant neighbourhood, dotted by willows and a variety of blooming bushes. She turned back to her hosts and said, with genuine appreciation, "Your home is lovely. I wish to thank you for your generous hospitality in inviting me here, when you hardly know me."

Aline glanced at Charlie with a look that was slightly at odds with their open demeanour of a few moments ago. "Well, dear, Trip spoke so much of you, we feel we know you already."

"Sure," Charlie rapidly agreed, "he talked about all his crewmates, and naturally he talked specially about the senior staff. We loved hearing his stories, every letter home was full of them."

T'Pol nodded, and continued, "I wasn't sure if you would wish to be bothered, the last time we met you were both very distressed…" She left the sentence hanging.

Charlie looked uncomfortable, and Aline hurriedly replied, "Oh, we weren't ourselves, were we Charlie? I'm afraid that was a hard time for us. But I guess we've had a bit of time now, and we're happy for the chance to talk about him with someone who knew him as well as you. Do come in, now, and we'll get you settled," she said, opening the door, and T'Pol followed her into the house and upstairs to the guest room.

She stopped at the threshold of the room, momentarily taken aback. The room seemed to be some sort of work-room or den normally, and was decorated with a number of mementos of their children, particularly Elizabeth and Trip. Trip's personal belongings – souvenirs of home and of his mission on Enterprise – were displayed prominently around the room, along with pictures of him, taken at various times in his life.

T'Pol entered slowly, taking in the images of him – joking with his sister, serious as he received his Starfleet commission, achingly young in his high school graduation photo – and here was an image of the three senior Enterprise officers, medals pinned to their chests, taken from the newswires. She read the accompanying headline – "Captain Jonathan Archer, Commander Charles Tucker III, and Commander T'Pol, after receiving their meritorious service awards for the Romulan conflict." Trip, who had been standing in the middle with a wide grin on his face, had his arms around each of their shoulders. Her heart ached, recalling that casual way he touched her, that no one else dared, and that still made her heart skip a beat each time it happened.

"That's a real good one of him, isn't it?" Aline spoke behind her, startling T'Pol out of her recollections. "He looks so happy, so …" her voice trailed off.

"Yes, he was," T'Pol agreed. He'd been particularly cocky that day, hamming it up for the cameras, joking and teasing. At one point during the celebrations in Phlox's favourite Chinese restaurant after the award ceremony, she had made the obligatory half-hearted effort to squelch his loud good humour with a severe comment about the comportment required of an officer, and he had responded by suggesting they take the party to the Vulcan compound instead, where they really knew how to have a good time. She had rolled her eyes, he had elbowed her in the ribs, and then had turned back to listen to a rather ribald story that Reed had been relating to Rostov. That incident had been typical of the strange friendship that, despite everything, had survived their rocky romantic relationship.

T'Pol would have given anything, reliving that moment, to have him rudely elbow her again. She blinked and took a deep breath, turning to face Trip's parents. Both were viewing her with sympathy; she supposed her loss of composure must have been obvious.

She wondered just how much of her relationship with their son they had been privy to. In order to proceed, she would have to reveal more of it than she had to anyone before – even Trip himself, she acknowledged.

"You said that he told you many stories of his time on Enterprise in his letters," she started, unsure exactly how to proceed.

"Uh huh, he was pretty good at sending letters," his father replied, sitting on the arm of the easy chair in the corner of the room. "Even when nothing much was happenin', he'd find something to talk about – stories about his friends, even what movie was showing that week."

"It is good that he kept in such close contact with you," she commented. "You have that much of him even though you saw him so little over the last years." It was a great contrast to the Vulcan way, where communication with family members tended to infrequent, formal updates.

His mother sighed. "Only a few weeks we had with him, scattered over seven years," she agreed. "Enterprise came back to Earth so rarely; the once after the Xindi attack, and then after the war was over. We barely saw him on that visit, and when we did, he was so sad, he hardly spoke." Aline hesitated uncomfortably, clearly not sure how much of what happened at that time was appropriate to discuss. "Then I guess three visits before the Romulan war, and the one after that war ended. And then the last time, of course." The last time, two days after Trip's death, they had seen only their son's cremated remains.

T'Pol hesitated, then took the plunge. "You knew of our daughter, Elizabeth, then."

Aline glanced at her husband. "Yes, dear, he told us. Not a lot," she added. "But enough, I guess. It must have been hard," she said, gently.

"It would have been easier if I could have borne it with him," she replied, turning again to look at the photos of him. "But our relationship had brought nothing but pain, and Vulcans learn that to master pain, they must deny it. So I denied it, and in the process, denied him," she stated, surprising herself with the honesty of her answer. "Did he tell you we were bonded?" she asked, turning abruptly to catch their bewildered expressions.

"Bonded?" Aline repeated, clearly startled. "He mentioned then that you and he had had …" she paused, searching for words, "a relationship of sorts, but that he guessed a Vulcan and a human weren't meant for that sort of thing together." She seemed to be searching her memory, remembering. "He was pretty upset when he told us, but we had no idea …"

"Neither did we, for some time," T'Pol murmured, running her finger over a picture of Trip laughing with his parents. "The bonding is a sharing of souls. The bond can be forged between two people in a marriage ceremony performed by a Vulcan priest. But it can also, rarely, simply happen between two people who find themselves to be soumates – _katra'katelau._ That is what happened between your son and myself."

Trip's parents both bore stunned expressions, clearly astonished by these revelations.

T'Pol continued. "Between Vulcans, the bond is ended only by the intervention of a priest, or death. However, because Trip was human, and the bond had formed accidentally, it seemed – we believed – that the bond had died of itself when we parted." She glanced briefly at Aline and Charlie, and then continued, "However, it had not." Her voice wavered slightly on the last words and she paused to compose herself.

"It hadn't?" This time it was Trip's father who prompted her to continue.

"No. It seems it was merely … dormant," T'Pol explained, looking out the window at the willow tree whose leaves swayed in the gentle summer breeze. "Or so I am told by the priest who attempted to perform my marriage ceremony last week."

This further revelation was met by an even more stunned silence. "What does that mean?" Aline managed after a moment of struggling with this information.

This time, T'Pol turned to face them full on. "It means that Trip and I were bonded, and the bond remained. According to Vulcan law, that would have made him my husband until his death. A death, that according to the _reldai_ who examined me and saw the strength of our bond, seemingly has not yet occurred."

Aline paled, and exchanged a stricken glance with her husband, who stood up to place himself behind her, hands on her shoulders. Charlie said, making an attempt to sound calm, "Miss T'Pol, you're not makin' a lot of sense."

T'Pol repeated, "The priests told me I could not remarry, because I was still married to my bondmate. They said that it was possible that the bond had survived his death because he was human, and that it would fade with time. But that it was more likely that he was still alive. I have had time to consider this possibility, during my return from Vulcan. And I have decided I believe. I believe he is not dead." She examined the faces of his parents keenly, and then spoke the words designed to obtain the reaction she needed. "And I believe you know it."

The two humans still looked stunned and upset. She felt a momentary sense of guilt – they believed he was dead, her words were cruel and thoughtless. But she had also over her many years with humans developed a certain aptitude for interpreting human body language, and especially that of someone to whom they were all intimately related. She realized that their reactions were also overlaid upon something else – nervousness. They were hiding something, she was suddenly convinced.

"You know what has happened," she prompted them, a slightly pleading tone creeping into her voice. "Tell me. I must know. Despite everything, it is my right. I am his wife."

Charlie ran his fingers through his hair in an agitated gesture that was disturbingly familiar to T'Pol. Aline sat silent, staring at T'Pol, with her right hand frantically twirling her wedding band on her left. She looked pleadingly at her husband, who finally spoke in a slightly desperate tone.

"Miss T'Pol, I know his death's been hard on us all, but this kind of talk doesn't help. Now why don't we leave you for a minute to unpack, and freshen up a bit before dinner. Aline's made a nice ragout, lots of fresh local vegetables. We'll see you downstairs in a while once you've had a chance to …" he trailed off.

T'Pol raised a single eyebrow at him, her expression clearly one of disbelief. Then she relaxed, and nodded. "Thank you again for your hospitality, Mr. and Mrs. Tucker. I will see you downstairs shortly." Trip's parents departed with alacrity, clearly relieved to escape the awkward situation.

T'Pol spent the next half hour unpacking her few items and attending to her personal hygiene. No one watching her would have suspected the speed with which her mind raced, reviewing the conversation that had just passed. At the end, she was left with one conclusion. He was not dead, and his parents had not denied the fact, nor that they knew of it. They also were clearly not in a position to reveal his whereabouts, if they even knew them; there was no point in further pursuing the topic with them.

The rest of the visit had thus passed with no more discord, T'Pol satisfied with the outcome she had already achieved. Their conversation did not stray again into the recent past, clearly forbidden territory. Instead, his parents had told her more of Trip, his childhood, and his dreams. T'Pol had explained a bit more of the events she and Trip had shared, without revealing more than she thought he would have been comfortable with.

Finally, without making a conscious decision, she found herself relating the events after the Terra Prime incident and the death of their daughter Elizabeth to their sympathetic ears. "The end of it was my fault," she stated. "It was nothing he did; nothing other than be himself. Had he been someone else, perhaps I would have been able to cope better with the bond. But had he been someone else, it would not have existed, nor would I have wanted it to. In the end, I could see no other solution that would permit me to continue to exist as myself." She fell silent, recalling the angry words he had spoken, the pain she had felt through their bond, for he had not realized how desperately he threatened her very essence.

Aline reached out and touched her hand, briefly and gently. "I don't know how you were able to work together after..."

"At first, it was very difficult," T'Pol agreed, remembering the time immediately after Elizabeth's death; how when they had worked together, it had been each of them alone, firmly isolated, speaking nothing but the most essential of words to get the job done.

And yet after a time – had it been weeks, or months? – without their realizing it, they had gradually resumed something resembling their original relationship, trading barbs and, more often than not, working in silences that now arose from a wordless understanding rather than their previous bitter isolation. In a way, the friendship that had resulted had been stronger than any she could have ever expected based on all that had gone before. That much good, at least, had come of it, she told herself.

When she had departed the Tucker's house the next morning, she came away with more than she had hoped for. Not only did she have an even stronger suspicion that Trip was alive, bolstered by what his parents had, and had not, said, but she had discovered a great deal about him during her discussions with his parents, and as much about herself.

Her determination to continue was now not only rooted in a desire to know the truth, to understand what had happened. She had to find him, for once again, he threatened her heart and her soul, this time not by his presence, but by his absence, leaving a void that she now knew must be filled, or risk her sanity, and her life.

*********

She emerged from the reverie she had been in. She did not know how long she had been standing staring at the fountain at the foot of the spiral staircase that led up to the main floor where Archer's office was located. She steeled her soul for the contest to come, and mounted the stairs.

TBC …


	4. Chapter 4

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's, not mine, though they don't deserve it.

A/N: It is assumed that although the overall historical events of TATV did happen, the moment-by-moment details of the events, as well as the personal interactions, would not have been part of the historical record. Therefore, the Enterprise-D holodeck recreation was a dramatization, fabricated as needed to make a better story. And hopefully, I have made a better story than the one they came up with.

********

Chapter 4.

Captain Archer strode out from behind his desk, beaming widely.

"T'Pol, you don't know how glad I am to see you. It's just not the same around here – no one to bounce things off of, and not much of anything to bounce, either."

She pointedly glanced at the water polo ball sitting on the window ledge behind his desk.

He chuckled. "All right, I still bounce that a bit. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to getting out from behind this desk to have lunch with you and Phlox. I've found the perfect restaurant. Phlox should be here any minute, why don't you have a seat while we wait?"

"I'm fine, Captain; the five days I spent in transit aboard the freighter have left me with a disinclination to sit more than necessary," T'Pol replied, walking over to the window to once again admire the view of the bay. "I take it you are not quite ready yet for a desk job."

Archer chuckled. "You can say that again. They'd better not be planning to leave me here long, or I'll quit and set up a freighter business with Travis."

At that moment, Phlox bustled into the room.

"T'Pol, Captain, so good to see you both!" he expostulated, beaming in that elastic manner he used when he emulated human good nature. "How was your journey, T'Pol? You're back early, are you not? Surely you still have some leave remaining."

"My journey was uneventful and contemplative, Doctor," T'Pol replied. "I did return early, I had concluded all of my business on Vulcan, and there was much I needed to do here."

"I hope that doesn't mean you plan to go back to work," Phlox chastised, "You need the vacation. As do you," he pointed out, wagging one finger at Archer.

Archer shrugged, "They can't run Starfleet without me," he said, winking at T'Pol. "But you're right about T'Pol. Do you have some plans?" he asked her, motioning them both out the door.

"No firm plans as of yet, but there are some items of unfinished business I will likely pursue," she replied, vaguely. They walked down the sweeping spiral staircase and exited the main doors of Starfleet Command, Phlox taking the opportunity to regale them with tales of his family.

*******

"So," Archer said, waving his half-eaten breadstick at T'Pol. "What have you been doing with yourself?" Phlox had finally run down, having exhausted the topic of all twenty-seven of his immediate family.

"I spent some time on Vulcan renewing old acquaintances," she replied, "and seeing to my property and finances. It was a pleasant visit," she concluded, which it had been, in truth, she told herself, until the dramatic conclusion.

"Just a visit?" Archer commented thoughtfully. "Not a trip home?"

She was somewhat taken aback by the question. After a moment, she inclined her head. "My former home," she conceded. "Until I take up my new posting, I suppose I do not have a place I would call home." She recalled how close she had been to tying herself to Vulcan again, and felt a pang of regret at the loss of the simple certainty of belonging there that she had been forced to forego.

"You could stay on Earth, you know. There's lots of opportunity for you here, if you didn't want to ship out," Archer pointed out.

T'Pol delicately speared a leaf of lettuce and placed it in her mouth. After chewing precisely 15 times and swallowing, she replied, "It would be hard for me to feel at home anywhere but Enterprise, regardless."

Phlox nodded, sagely. "It is the people that make it home," he agreed. "Not the place. You do not have much family left on Vulcan."

"No," T'Pol agreed, briefly. There was an awkward pause as they all remembered the incidents of the Vulcan Civil War that had led to the death of her mother, and her divorce from Koss. T'Pol decided that this was a suitable opening.

"I visited with Trip's parents yesterday."

There was a moment of absolute stillness from her two dining companions. Phlox actually stopped eating with his fork halfway to his mouth. They exchanged the briefest of glances, and then Archer said, "That was considerate, I should have seen them more often since I've been here. How are they?"

"They are well," T'Pol replied, keeping one eye on the captain and doctor while apparently concentrating on twirling her linguine. "In fact, their mood is quite positive, considering they lost their son only a few months ago."

After another awkward pause, during which the laughter from the table next to them at the small bistro became quite raucous, Phlox said, somewhat hurriedly, "They've begun their healing process, quite a healthy response I assure you.."

He tries a bit too hard to explain their reactions, T'Pol thought to herself. I believe he is rattled. "Perhaps," she continued. "But it did seem unusual. The grieving period for a parent on Vulcan would last many months more."

Archer picked up from where Phlox had left off, his discomfort with the topic showing, "They probably had a good cry after you left," he suggested. "Breadstick?" he offered, shoving the basket in her face.

She shook her head. "My pasta and salad are quite adequate, thank you. They did speak of him at great length," she continued, not about to be driven off topic. "Perhaps you should visit them," she indicated to Archer. "I'm sure they would appreciate the opportunity to speak further of him with you."

Archer replied a bit awkwardly, "I'll have to try to arrange something. How's your meal, Doctor?"

"The squid is quite excellent," Phlox replied in his ever-genial voice. "And so is the wine … a bit more would be appreciated," he said jovially, indicating his wine glass, which Archer hurried to fill.

"His parents asked if I would visit the memorial while I was here," T'Pol continued truthfully. "Would either of you care to join me after lunch? I believe you recommended some time away from a desk," she noted to Phlox, as Archer looked about to protest.

Archer replied dryly. "I think he was suggesting some form of relaxation, not visiting a memorial." He held up his hand as T'Pol was about to speak. "No, never mind, you're right. I haven't been there since ..." he paused, leaving his sentence unfinished. "I should go. Phlox?"

Phlox looked vaguely regretful. "Unfortunately, I did make an appointment to meet with Dr. Lucas after lunch. Otherwise I should have been happy to join you." The remainder of the lunch passed in discussion of a variety of harmless subjects, T'Pol willing to wait to continue her campaign.

*********

The memorial was high atop Telegraph Hill, next to Coit Tower. T'Pol and Archer climbed the hill in companionable silence, and walked across the grass to where the Starfleet memorial waited.

It was an impressive chunk of granite, an abstract form several metres high that gave the suggestion of a launch into space, with shades of pink at the base turning to grey at the tip.

About the base were carved the names of each individual that had died in the line of duty while serving Starfleet. There were too many names – many that had served under Captain Archer, having died in the Xindi and Romulan conflicts. Archer stood on the far side of the monument, contemplating the first names that had been added seven years ago. The subsequent names had been added sequentially in such a manner that they wrapped around the monument. The last name added lay directly in front of T'Pol. She ran her fingers over the carving, gently tracing out each letter: CHARLES "TRIP" TUCKER III.

_Thy'la_, she thought. She closed her eyes momentarily, her need overwhelming her.

She heard a quiet movement next to her, and opened her eyes to see Archer looking at her sympathetically.

She said nothing for a moment, gathering herself. She turned to face him, back straight, arms clasped behind her. She pinned him with her gaze, and after a few seconds, when he began to look uncomfortable, she launched her attack.

"Where is he?"

Archer looked visibly shaken, and his eyes darted away for a moment.

"I – don't know what you mean, T'Pol," he replied after a moment, looking back at her, trying to look suitably perplexed but rather looking decidedly anxious.

"Please Captain, do not prevaricate. You have always been a terrible liar," T'Pol castigated him dryly. "It is one of the reasons you have been such a successful negotiator. You can keep up a pretence for a short period, but in the end, you always tell the truth, no matter how unpopular it might be. A surprisingly rare attribute in a diplomat," she noted.

He looked even more uncomfortable as she crossed her arms and shook her head, continuing. "As such, it is remarkable that you were able to pull off such a fabrication without my suspecting it until recently. You have my congratulations. However, now I know, and it would be better if you do not attempt to continue …" she forestalled his attempted interruption with a look that might be interpreted as slightly threatening. "Have you ever seen an angry Vulcan, Captain?"

Archer closed his mouth with a snap, and stood motionless for a moment like a deer in headlights. Then he turned to contemplate the memorial again for perhaps a minute. Finally he sighed and gestured vaguely. "You're right. His name shouldn't be there."

T'Pol felt a thrill of exquisite relief at having her suspicions at last confirmed, although no sign of it crossed her features. It was important for Archer not to know how weak her hand truly was. "Go on," she prompted severely.

"How did you find out?" Archer asked. She was unsure whether he was genuinely curious or was simply stalling, and she determined not to allow him time to develop an alternate story.

"I am here to hear your version of events," she castigated him, tersely, and gestured to one of the benches. "Perhaps if you sat down, you would be more comfortable. I would expect this could take some time."

He rolled his eyes, but acquiesced, and seated himself on the bench. "Aren't you going to sit?" he indicated the seat beside him.

"As I told you Captain, I am happy to stand today," she replied, unwilling to give up the psychological dominance she had taken by standing over him. "I suggest you start at the beginning," she prodded.

"The beginning," he murmured. "I suppose it was the day before." He paused. "Malcolm got the call."

Her mind raced, noting that Reed's participation in the scheme was now confirmed, and then she made the connection. "His former employers."

Archer nodded. Reed, like T'Pol, had been involved in covert operations before his time on Enterprise. "Trip was needed for a mission of vital security. And the existence of the crisis couldn't even be suspected. So Trip had to disappear in a way that would leave no lingering questions about his absence."

T'Pol contemplated this information briefly and sceptically. "I find it difficult to believe a plausible story could not be developed that did not involve his death."

"There wasn't time to make it foolproof," Archer replied. "They felt this was the only solution."

"And you went along with this?" she questioned, her tone sharp.

"Their methods may be questionable, T'Pol, but their intelligence has never been wrong yet," Archer pointed out. Enterprise had dealt more than once with the covert ops group and each time, a serious crisis had been averted. "It was a major security issue that required immediate action, and they needed Trip. None of us was happy about it. But you know Trip, he couldn't have lived with himself if something had happened that he could have helped to prevent," Archer concluded, quietly.

"Why was I not told?" T'Pol asked, her tone now tending to glacial.

Archer squirmed. "T'Pol, we had to keep the number of people who knew to a bare minimum – Malcolm, Phlox and I were the only ones who knew. And we were expressly told in no uncertain terms not to tell you."

"Why? What was this crisis?" she asked, accusingly.

Archer's shoulders sagged. "I don't know, T'Pol. And that's the truth!" he insisted, at her steely expression. "I wasn't told. And I don't know where he is," he added. "So there's no point in asking me again."

She looked at him, her composure clearly slipping to reveal her anger. "You assisted in arranging for his apparent death, with no idea why, or where he was going, to help a covert organization whose methods have been suspect every time we have dealt with them. Captain, I find that difficult to believe."

He shook his head. "What can I say? It all happened so fast, we had to complete the scenario they'd devised so that it could be done while we were still far enough away from Earth for it to be plausible."

She asked, in clipped tones, "So what really happened?"

"The ship that apparently boarded us was actually a ship sent to meet us. They beamed over the charred "alien" bodies, and beamed Trip off the ship. Malcolm made sure the corridors were clear so that no one saw anything of the incident, and fabricated the sensor logs. Phlox doctored the medical logs and took care of dealing with the bodies appropriately and generating some ashes for Trip's family."

"His family," T'Pol interjected. "His parents did not know at the memorial service." Their grief had been far too realistic.

"No, they didn't," Archer agreed. "But Trip had only agreed to co-operate on the condition that they be told as soon as possible. It was felt that they shouldn't be told before the service, so that their reactions would be genuine. I told them right afterward. They weren't too happy with me, or him," he noted wryly. "I got a real earful that night."

"I don't doubt it, Captain," T'Pol said frigidly. "If it were not important to me to remain a member in good standing of Starfleet, I would do more than that."

Archer looked decidedly nervous, and asserted, "Honestly T'Pol, I've told you everything I know."

She contemplated him for a long moment. "I believe you," she finally replied, sitting down beside him on the bench. "As I said, you are not a good liar."

He look vaguely affronted, but decided that discretion was probably appropriate at this point and said nothing, waiting for her to speak.

"This crisis, it must not yet be over, nor can it have culminated in anything negative yet," she mused.

"In all likelihood," Archer agreed, looking slightly worried. "Although I've started to worry about how they're planning to bring him back from the dead. What if they haven't been able to figure that out yet? I suspect the whole removal plan was dreamed up pretty quickly, and they may not have even had an exit strategy."

T'Pol stood abruptly. This was all the more reason to pursue this down another path as quickly as possible. "Thank you for your honesty Captain, even if it was somewhat belated," she added acerbically.

"You can't go around asking questions," Archer warned her, knowing his former first officer too well. "He's alive, and doing essential work for the security of Earth, maybe even the Federation. You need to leave it alone, T'Pol, or you could endanger him, and yourself."

"I appreciate your concern, Captain. I do not intend to do anything rash," she replied, quite honestly. Whatever she did, would be carefully considered and executed with the razor-sharp efficiency her years of covert ops training had taught her.

Archer looked dubious, but decided to let it drop. "Have we finished here?" He made the trip to the memorial each time out of duty, but he was clearly anxious to be gone.

"Yes, Captain. It is getting late, I expect the Admiralty is beginning to wonder about your whereabouts," she said, firmly cutting short their visit. Another time, she would have taken the opportunity to spend more time with the Captain at his office, but her patience was stretched very thin. She needed time alone to plan further. They parted at the bottom of the hill, Archer hailing a taxi to take him back to Headquarters. Although the residences were nearby, T'Pol preferred to walk back, to give herself time to synthesize the new information and start to plan her next move.

*****

She had spent the next few hours in careful contemplation, and had made her decision on how to proceed. She was impatient to move on, but was forced by the realities of a heavily booked tourist season to wait till the next day to continue her travel to Kuala Lumpur.

She had already completed her plan, and unless she intended to sit at the airport for 14 hours, it made sense to use her time in the relative quiet of the Starfleet residence to focus her thoughts. However the sense of being on the cusp of a change that could once again throw her into a maelstrom of uncertainty was impossible to ignore. She decided to attempt meditation. But the white space that usually seemed clean, uncluttered, and peacefully inviting, today seemed sterile, cold, and isolated.

Her soul, alone for so long, once again yearned for its mate, and she cast out, reaching to feel the bond she had not sensed in years.

… TBC


	5. Chapter 5

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's, not mine, though they don't deserve it.

A/N: It is assumed that although the overall historical events of TATV did happen, the moment-by-moment details of the events, as well as the personal interactions, would not have been part of the historical record. Therefore, the Enterprise-D holodeck recreation was a dramatization, fabricated as needed to make a better story. And hopefully, I have made a better story than the one they came up with.

********

Chapter 5

Off and on for the last half hour, the chief engineer of the Europa research facility had felt a strange teasing in his brain, a sense of dizziness and displacement. His mood, which a short time ago had been calm and focussed, now seemed to swing between a state of elation and confusion. Trying to ignore the disturbing sensations, he adjusted the phase discriminator that had been misaligning randomly off and on for the past week. Maybe, he thought to himself, it was a weird subharmonic of the device causing some form of mental disturbance.

The lanky blond engineer stood and stretched out the ache in his back. "Tak-sun!" he yelled, putting down the phase discriminator in frustration. "Help me out with uncoupling this manifold, a couple of extra hands ought to make it easier." The stocky junior engineer moved over to assist him, strong hands making quick work of the complicated disconnection.

The buzzing in Tucker's head seemed to subside a bit, while leaving a tight feeling of ill-subdued tension in his chest. Partially relieved, he scrutinized the inner workings of the manifold, squinting at the long glowing tubes that were probably the equivalent of phase couplings.

"Pass me the scope, will you?" Tucker pondered the readouts as he scanned each of the couplings, adjusting the frequency range of the analysis repeatedly. Finally he rested back on his heels and sighed.

"Nothing," he concluded, exasperated. "Nada, nil, zippo." Five days of investigation had yielded no information on the function of this small portion of the device as they systematically poked and prodded it. "Have the other teams had any more luck?" He turned to watch the fifty-odd beings that scrambled over the surfaces of the immense device housed in the cavernous facility.

"I do not believe so, sir," Tak-sun replied. "This week has been particularly frustrating."

The strange sensations in Tucker's head chose that moment to resume, and he shook his head. "I need a break," he said, chucking the scanner onto the test bench in front of him. "Care for a walk?"

The junior engineer declined, saying, "I've got a few tricks I'd still like to try on this beast," as he kicked the side of the unit jokingly. Trip smiled politely, and headed for the door. In truth, he had not wanted the company, as he suspected Tak-sun had known; but in such tight quarters, it was essential to maintain good relations with co-workers.

He exited into a brightly lit corridor, decorated in early 22nd century space colony décor – grey and monotonous. While he understood that this facility had been constructed rapidly, without a lot of opportunity to obtain top class construction materials, the old, drab pre-formed materials that they had slapped together were decidedly unattractive. He noted with relief that the odd sensations again seemed to recede a bit as he left the work area, although the tension remained.

After walking purposefully through a few hundred meters of corridor, having passed a number of featureless, unlabelled doors, he paused at one apparently like all the others, and pulled on the handle to let himself in. The blissful contrast between the muggy, fragrant air within the hydroponics facility inside, and the stale, ozone-laden air outside, never failed to assault his senses each time he visited.

He sat on the bench placed for the purpose, admiring the plump vegetables. He nodded to the hydroponics technician, and wondered not for the first time what incentives had been given to get the support staff that kept this place running – ample remuneration no doubt played a pretty big role, and maybe a story to tell their grandchildren to boot, if they could ever hope to have any. Everyone here so far single, unattached, individuals whose absence would not have an overly damaging impact on any immediate family, and who could thus disappear without causing undue notice.

The speed and efficiency with which the diverse project team had been assembled, in near total secrecy, had been impressive. How many others like him had been extracted with hardly a day's notice, and little information before they left other than the extreme urgency of the mission?

Few of the project personnel spoke of their background before joining the project, perhaps feeling that their personal lives were best left at the door; some of them were certainly covert ops, like the agent that had contacted Enterprise. Spooks everywhere, he thought to himself with disgust. Still, it was fortunate that it was the intelligence services that had themselves organized the diaspora of Earth's best engineers and exo-archaeologists to this facility. Otherwise, they would surely have noticed the unusual increase in sudden deaths and disappearances in these two segments of the population.

When the plan to fake his death had been outlined, Trip had objected angrily, with Archer vigorously supporting him. However, Starfleet had made it clear that after two major interplanetary wars in the past decade, this operation required absolute secrecy. Earth's people could not know of the project, for the consequences to morale and to her security would be devastating. Tucker's disappearance for a prolonged period, perhaps years, could not otherwise be explained without raising suspicion. It was also made clear to him that "no" was not an answer; he was essential to the project. Despite having more than paid his dues over the past decade, he was once again conscripted.

His heart still ached for the agony that he was sure his parents had endured for the few days they believed him dead. He also felt considerable guilt for the fact that the remainder of his family and friends would continue to believe, for who knew how long, that he had died a few months ago – for only his parents had been told, and otherwise, only Archer, Phlox and Reed had known of the deception.

The buzzing suddenly resumed, much louder. But this time, he realized, it was not inside his head, but was due to a bumblebee droning contentedly over the blossoming vegetables, cross-pollinating them as it passed from flower to flower. He smiled wistfully at this little bit of home, so incongruously transplanted to this otherwise sterile scientific facility. More cost-effective to import bumblebees than to pay another technician for the job, he supposed.

Unfortunately, as facility chief, his break was best kept to a few minutes only. Sighing, he pushed himself off the bench and headed for the exit. As he turned for one last look before departing, he noticed off in the corner a particularly spiky cactus with a single scarlet bloom. A fairly useless plant for a hydroponics facility – he wondered who had managed to import it and why. It was prickly and lonely-looking, a desert flower incongruous but starkly beautiful amongst the rows of vegetables.

As he leaned over for a closer examination, inhaling the sweet scent that arose from the scarlet flower, a vivid memory was provoked – an image of T'Pol as he had last seen her, her sadness at their upcoming separation evident. She had been wearing her scarlet jumpsuit, and the green sheen to her skin matched that of the desert succulent in front of him. As always, her slightly alien, delicately seductive scent had surrounded him, threatening to destroy his resolve.

But he had steeled himself, stifling his intense regret at the necessity to deceive her, knowing that in a few hours she would believe him dead. She'll be better off, he had told himself, for neither one of them had been truly able to move on, even after all the time that had passed.

Maybe she could still sense that his feelings for her, buried for so long, had never truly changed. And there were times when it still took every ounce of willpower he had not to show her how he felt. This way is best, he had thought, even as he tried to reassure her that they would remain in touch despite everything.

But now, seeing that lonely desert flower, the guilt and loneliness arose unbidden. She should be here, Trip thought, slapping his hand viciously against the wall. He did his best work around her – they could troubleshoot together as though they were still linked, new insights coming to him effortlessly when she was in the vicinity observing. But even after all these years of her loyal service in Starfleet, the spooks had decided that they couldn't take the risk of a Vulcan knowing of the project – they weren't sure she'd be willing to make the sacrifice necessary, or even that she could be trusted to keep the secret, given her close connection to Ambassador Soval. Despite the founding of the Federation and the détente that had ensued amongst the four founding races, there was a deep distrust of Vulcans in particular amongst Earth's intelligence services. And this had been the perfect opportunity to break it off, to finally walk away and start again, forced by circumstances.

He stopped and brooded out at the barren landscape of Jupiter's moon outside the window for a few minutes. Then, shaking his head, he exited and returned down the hall to the busy work area, the odd sensations forgotten, as he once more lost himself in the challenge of the chase in which they were all engaged.

… TBC


	6. Chapter 6

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's, not mine, though they don't deserve it.

A/N: It is assumed that although the overall historical events of TATV did happen, the moment-by-moment details of the events, as well as the personal interactions, would not have been part of the historical record. Therefore, the Enterprise-D holodeck recreation was a dramatization, fabricated as needed to make a better story. And hopefully, I have made a better story than the one they came up with.

********

Chapter 6

T'Pol raised herself from the kneeling position she had occupied for the previous four hours. Her efforts to reach Tucker from her meditative state had yielded brief, tantalizing responses. It was as though there were a string suspended between them that when plucked, gave a resonance because it was tied at the other end, but it was a resonance that did nothing but confirm that the other end did, in fact, exist, likely at some great distance.

For her efforts, she had returned from her meditative state to a piercing headache and nausea. This condition, in turn, yielded a feeling of unease – in a Vulcan, persistent neurological symptoms such as these were generally a sign of a serious underlying condition. It was not the first headache she had had over the last few days, and they were increasing in frequency and severity. Her mood, also, had grown increasingly erratic and she had struggled to maintain something resembling a normal Vulcan stoicism.

At this point it was seemed a reasonable conclusion that the symptoms were directly related to the series of events starting with her aborted wedding on Vulcan, and further, that her condition was deteriorating.

She attempted to consider the situation logically. Under the circumstances, it was difficult to be sure. The best case was that she was suffering from a severe case of the Vulcan equivalent of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Other less desirable possibilities included damage resulting from the reactivation of the bond by the interventions of the Vulcan priest, or, finally and most dangerously, the possible onset of her _pon farr_. Her mind briefly shied away from the implications of this last possibility, but she forced herself to follow this through to its conclusion. Any or all of these conditions could lead, eventually, to serious brain damage, while death could be a consequence of an unresolved _plak'tow_.

Her mind followed yet further down this path. What if her bondmate, too, was affected adversely? Trip's life also could be in jeopardy. And while she might be willing to risk her life to preserve his, she would not risk his life by her inaction, Earth's security or no.

The sense of urgency she had felt since learning of the bond and Trip's non-demise increased, as she concluded that finding him was the only possible resolution to the situation. If her determination had, over the last few days, occasionally wavered, no uncertainty now remained.

With the path forward straight, she lay down on her bunk to sleep dreamlessly for the hours remaining before her departure.

******

The small, hooded figure stepped from the taxi in front of a small but airy house that overlooked a small rocky garden in which a riot of flowers bloomed. Someone in this place clearly appreciated the beauties of nature, T'Pol thought, as she opened the gate and climbed the steep path to the front door. It was likely that someone was home – the windows were lit against the beginning of the evening gloom, as the sun had just dipped below the horizon. She had chosen not to call ahead, taking the small chance that Lt. Cmdr. Reed would be out all evening, in order that he not be given the opportunity to anticipate her reasons for visiting.

Charmingly, the doorbell was an old-fashioned brass ship's bell. She pulled on the handle and the bell clanged loudly, announcing her presence.

"Yes?" The woman who answered the door gazed at T'Pol in puzzlement. Since T'Pol was not wearing her uniform, she was not immediately recognisable.

"Good evening Mrs. Reed, it is a pleasure to see you again," T'Pol said in her most ingratiating tone of voice. "Commander T'Pol, here to see your son."

"Goodness," Malcolm's mother expostulated. "I'm sorry for not recognising you Commander, it was just so unexpected. Do come in," she indicated, opening the door wide.

T'Pol entered and gazed appraisingly at the hallway within. It was covered in pictures of family members, a great many of them naval officers. Malcolm's portrait, taken in his dress uniform, had pride of place in the centre of the hall.

"Can I take your coat?" Mrs. Reed offered, and T'Pol slipped off her robe. It was quite warm within, the cool evening breeze not having yet reached the inside of the house.

Mrs. Reed was clearly torn between politeness and anxious curiosity, and T'Pol took pity on her. "My apologies for arriving unannounced, Mrs. Reed. I needed to have a word with your son on a matter of some importance," she explained smoothly.

"Oh dear, nothing wrong I hope?" his mother asked, indicating that T'Pol should precede her into the living area. She was clearly concerned that having just had her son returned to her for a few weeks, she would lose him again to something lengthy or dangerous.

"No, however Lt. Cmdr. Reed has some important information that I require," T'Pol explained honestly enough. "Is he at home?"

"He should be home any minute," his mother replied, visibly stifling her curiosity as she sat herself stiffly in the Queen Anne chair in the corner. "He's just gone into town for a spot of shopping, and Stuart's out fishing."

At that moment the front door slammed. "I'm home," a familiar voice called out, "and I've brought curry fixings for dinner." Lt. Commander Reed entered the room and stopped abruptly, his relaxed manner transforming. "Commander, this is unexpected," he said warily, dropping his shopping bags on a chair.

"As I was explaining to your mother, I should like a few moments of your time to discuss a matter of some importance. I am sorry to bother you and your family," she murmured deprecatingly, "however it could not wait."

"Will you stay to dinner then?" Malcolm's mother asked graciously. "I'm sure there's enough and it can easily be made vegetarian."

"I am unsure," T'Pol replied, glancing at Reed with some discomfiture, as he stared at her piercingly. "I do not wish to disturb you more than necessary. If we could have a few moments..."

"May I suggest a walk by the river then?" Malcolm suggested. T'Pol nodded and they left the house by the front door, walking the short distance to the river in silence. There were few other people about, it being dinnertime, and they had the walking path to themselves.

"Now then, what's so important that you couldn't call me?" Reed asked appraisingly as they ducked under a trailing tree over the riverside path.

T'Pol grasped her hands behind her back and walked purposefully beside him. Reed was an experienced operative and unlikely to be rattled, therefore she had already decided on directness. "I need to know Commander Tucker's whereabouts. The Captain was unable to provide me with the information, however I suspect that even if you do not know where he is, you are capable of finding out."

Reed, after an initial glance of surprise, continued to walk beside her in silence for some moments. T'Pol said nothing more, but waited for him to digest the implications of her visit.

Finally he replied, "You know we were to keep you out of the loop entirely."

T'Pol nodded. "The Captain informed me. However there is little to be gained now by further subterfuge," she pointed out, "and I could make things awkward if I chose to. Surely better to provide me with the information I need, rather than risk my asking questions in the wrong place."

He pondered the situation in silence again for a time, then stopped and faced her. "You also must be aware then that you could be risking his life, as well as Earth's security, by doing that. I don't think you're going to." He had called her bluff, and it was her turn to be silent as she considered her counterattack. Before she had formulated her next response, he surprised her by continuing, "Why do you need to know, T'Pol?"

He had deliberately not used her rank. It was a personal question, and he knew it. He was giving her an opening, she realized, and it would be foolish to let her pride stand in the way of a tactical advantage freely granted. Still, T'Pol found herself walking to the edge of the water to stand with her back facing him, while she found the words to continue.

"You and Dr. Phlox were, I believe, the only two people on Enterprise aware of the full extent of our relationship," she stated. "As well as how it ended." She turned to face him, then, needing to see his reaction.

"Did the Captain not know, then?" Reed asked curiously.

"He may have suspected something," she replied, "but as far as I know Mr. Tucker did not enlighten him as to the details, for as our commanding officer it would have placed him in an awkward position. I certainly did not." She paused, and then continued. "And there was, in fact, little enough to it, to all outward appearances. I imagine it would have been easy for him to believe, once it had ended, that we suffered from little but wounded pride after a brief and ill-considered relationship."

Reed nodded. "That's certainly what I would have thought."

"But he talked to you, did he not," she prompted.

"Not extensively," he replied, grudgingly, "but enough, I suppose. I'd had my suspicions, and he told me when things were getting rocky. After you … called it off for good," –clearly at this point he was struggling for a tactful way to describe her abrupt and brutal termination of their relationship – "I made him talk to me, when I could see he was hurting. He explained some things."

She nodded. "He told you of our bond."

"A bit," he agreed uncomfortably. "I didn't really understand it, to tell you the truth, but …" he paused, grasping for words, "I guess the two of you were a lot closer than I would have given credit for." He took a deep breath, and continued with a disapproving voice, remembering, "You hurt him pretty badly. I was afraid for a while that we'd lose him."

The gentle implied reproof was mild compared with what she deserved. "He did nothing to deserve my treatment of him," she stated in a clipped voice. "I was afraid … " she concluded, her voice choking.

Reed stared at her, surprise being followed by comprehension and pity. "Hell to be a Vulcan with Trip in love with you," he commented gently, a modicum of forgiveness in his tone. "I don't know if I could have held out against him if he'd ever shown the slightest interest in me," he continued consideringly, as if seeing her point of view for the first time, "and I've never looked at a man in my life like that," he concluded.

"Then you will understand why I must know where he is, when I tell you that our bond still exists," T'Pol stated, with some difficulty keeping her tone even, despite the pounding of her blood in her ears. "And if it is not renewed, quickly, there is a distinct possibility that one or both of us will die."

This time his surprise was followed by an expression of calculation. He crossed his arms, and pointed out, "You're asking me to disobey orders and place Earth's security in jeopardy. I'll need some proof."

Her mind raced. He had not refused her request, but how to provide proof of something she was not sure of herself? She rapidly searched for alternatives, and was left with only one possible approach. "I cannot provide you with absolute proof, Mr. Reed. I can, however, provide you with information, including demonstrating my own conviction, from which you can draw your own conclusions. It will not be without risk to yourself, however," she added.

He gazed at her thoughtfully, and then replied, "Well, it wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

*******

Reed sat in the dark, staring at the faint green glow from the comm. screen in the living room – it needed replacing, keeping a static charge long after it had been shut off. The comm. line from his parents' house was hardly secure, but he knew a few tricks and in the end was fairly sure that his communications could not have been monitored, and would have shown no unusual activity to outside eyes.

Despite his distaste for the organization he had just contacted, he still felt a guilty rush of adrenaline each time he called on them. The lure of covert operations was strong. He smiled dryly to himself as he considered just how far his father's dictatorial manner had in fact driven him away from the naval career his father would have preferred for him – joining Starfleet seemed a fairly mild rebellion compared to the more dangerous activities he had undertaken while working for Harris for a few years thereafter, probably more in glorified self-destruction than in patriotism, he had to admit.

When he had walked away, his experience in covert ops had stood him in good stead for a job on Enterprise, although there was a time when he had wondered if Harris had not considered destroying him rather than having him wander loose on board a starship.

Ultimately it had become a somewhat symbiotic relationship – his former masters had seen his presence on Enterprise as an ace in the hole, one they had eventually drawn on during the conflict with the Augments. Reed thereafter had had no reluctance in return taking advantage of that connection to gain information when necessary. The uneasy relationship had persisted, their last communications having been when Trip had been recruited a few months ago.

********

As usual, Reed's compliance with Harris' needs had been taken as implicit.

"If this blows open, at the very least Earth government could fall. The alliance could go with it," Harris had told him. Reed had the impression that the last tidbit had been thrown in more to recruit his enthusiasm than because Harris thought it would be any great tragedy. "At the worst, Earth could be destroyed – we don't know where this could go. It's simmering up at the top, and the whole thing is on the edge of public disclosure with the panic they're in. We need Tucker and we need him now. He's got more off-world engineering experience than any twenty other engineers we have combined, and he's a hero ten times over – with him in charge, the minister will trust that it's under control."

"Just how serious is it, really?" Reed asked sceptically. "I get the impression that this is more about politics than it is anything else."

For a moment, Harris' expression shifted with unease. "I don't know, and that's the God's truth," he replied. "It could be nothing – a remnant, a scientific curiosity. Or it could be a time bomb that started ticking two weeks ago. We need answers, Reed, and I'm authorized to do what it takes to get them."

********

So, in the end, Reed had set up the deception that resulted in Tucker being spirited off Enterprise while his crewmates believed him dead. These events had ultimately been the catalyst for T'Pol's visit here today, culminating in one of the strangest evenings of his life. After they had returned to the house, T'Pol had insisted on preparing dinner for the family, citing Vulcan custom, although Malcolm's mother had been permitted to assist. The curry had been excellent, and although he knew his parents had been dying of curiosity, their British manners had left them sticking to polite small talk around the dinner table.

After dinner, T'Pol and Malcolm had retired to the study upstairs, to "spend some time going over reports" as Malcolm had explained to his parents. They had seated themselves in chairs facing one another, knees touching.

"Are you sure, Mr. Reed?" T'Pol enquired, clearly having second thoughts. "This would be better done under Dr. Phlox's supervision."

"It's bad enough the two of us," Malcolm replied. "If the three of us were identified as having been together in such peculiar circumstances, someone will put two and two together for sure, and we'll have the intelligences services on our doorstep. Any chance you'll have of finding him will likely be out the window then."

"On the other hand," she suggested, "they might simply agree to let me see him. After all, now that I know …" she trailed off.

"… they might decide to eliminate the possibility that you would leak the information," Reed concluded dryly. "At this point there's so much paranoia in the upper echelons that I'm pretty sure that getting you out of the way wouldn't cause them a lot of grief. Not that they'd kill you," he added explaining further, as T'Pol looked sceptical, "but a little kidnapping might not be outside the bounds of possibility. Best to keep this just you and me."

After a moment, T'Pol settled herself on the edge of her chair, and placed her hands on Reed's face, circling his temples with her fingers, gently probing for the pressure points. She murmured some words in Vulcan, and after a minute or two, he suddenly felt his consciousness expand like a balloon, encompassing her body as well as his own. He could see through her eyes, his own eyes wide in barely controlled panic. He forced it down, knowing how it would affect her.

He found himself mentally reliving the trip to Vulcan, and the aborted marriage, the headaches and dizziness, the desperate need, and the fear – paralysing and ever-present – that she would die without seeing him again, or that he would die if she could not find him, and then finally, the nearly uncontrollable urge to damage anyone who stood in her way.

After a time, she removed her hands and he stared at her, feeling his thoughts slowly become once more his own. He swallowed dryly, and rubbed his hands over his face. "Well," he said. "I don't know how you live with it."

T'Pol was silent for a long moment, giving herself time to recover. Then she spoke. "It is what it is to be Vulcan, Mr. Reed. Every hour we live, we spend not surrendering to the weakness that would let us be our true selves. That is why I could not stay with him." She gazed out the window blindly, and then continued. "But in the end, it was already too late, though I did not realize it. Each one of us must yield to the bonding, or die. That too, is what it is to be Vulcan." She looked at him sombrely, and concluded, "It is an aspect of Vulcan society that is not shown to off-worlders."

He shook his head. "No, I don't suppose. You know me, T'Pol. Who would I tell?"

The barest of smiles passed over her lips. "There are many who would delight in hearing of our weakness."

"No one I know," Reed replied firmly. "In fact, I don't even know what you're talking about." He stood, somewhat unsteadily at first, and concluded, "Now, I've got some research to do. You'd better take the convertible bed in here and get some sleep. I could be a while."

In the end, it had not taken so very long. T'Pol had been correct – he knew far more about the details of Tucker's departure than had his two co-conspirators.

He already knew Tucker was not on Earth, but was somewhere within their solar system. So an hour or so of research, using search engines unknown to most civilians, had yielded some highly suggestive data. There had been an unusual amount of transport activity in the direction of the outer planets, and based on timings of departure and return of various suspect craft, the most likely locations for the facility were narrowed down to somewhere between Jupiter and the asteroid belt.

Now he had to decide just how to help T'Pol, while keeping the danger to everyone concerned to a minimum.

He smiled to himself. He might not be in covert ops any longer, but he still had a few tricks up his sleeve. He hadn't had this much fun in years …

…. TBC


	7. Chapter 7

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's, not mine, though they don't deserve it.

A/N: It is assumed that although the overall historical events of TATV did happen, the moment-by-moment details of the events, as well as the personal interactions, would not have been part of the historical record. Therefore, the Enterprise-D holodeck recreation was a dramatization, fabricated as needed to make a better story. And hopefully, I have made a better story than the one they came up with.

********

Chapter 7

Looking out the window of the autocab en route to her room, T'Pol noted that the weather in San Francisco was much more typical than it had been on her last visit; a fine mist covered everything. She recalled standing in the bright sunlight outside the Reeds' house, and Malcolm's parting words to her.

"Remember, you're going to have to sit tight till I've found you a ship. Could be a day or a week, so the best thing you can do is go back to work and act natural."

Easy for him to say. Between the headaches and nausea, and the nervous anxiety, she was not sure that she would be able to act natural – perhaps it would be better if she took some time off away from everyone, somewhere where any odd behaviour would go unremarked.

She stifled a sigh. In fact, rather than trying to get away from San Francisco, she should take advantage of the fact that Dr. Phlox was likely still here. The autocab pulled up outside her door and she disembarked, unlocking the front door of the walkup using the security keypad, and climbing the single set of stairs to her room. Once inside, she dropped her travel sack from her shoulder, pulled out her personal communicator and keyed in his name.

*********

Phlox stood with his arms crossed, frowning at her as she sat on the diagnostic bed inside Starfleet Medical. "You showed none of these symptoms on your post-tour medical," he commented, a fact they both knew already. "Did you experience any of them before the wedding ceremony?"

"No," she replied succinctly. "The first symptoms appeared within 24 hours of my departure from Vulcan." T'Pol had told Phlox only those facts necessary for him to understand what led up to her visit, and had not mentioned anything to do with her knowledge of Trip's disappearance. While she knew Phlox had been part of the conspiracy, there was nothing to be gained by adding his name to those with whom she had discussed it.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "it certainly seems likely that the events of the wedding ceremony precipitated your condition. Whether those events are actually the cause is another question. Certainly brain scans will be necessary. I can continue to investigate this by myself, or I can call in one of the Vulcan physicians that is posted here; there are three excellent individuals with various specializations, and they might have more insight ..."

"No," she replied again, this time with particular vigour. "I trust your skills are more than adequate to the task, Doctor. Continue."

He nodded somewhat dubiously. "If you say so, T'Pol," he acquiesced, "but there could be something that they might recognize that I would not; after all, it is well known to physicians in the IME that Vulcan doctors do not tell us everything about Vulcan biology, particularly in areas relating to Vulcan mating customs."

She stifled a wince at his casual reference to such a sensitive topic. "I will take that chance for now, Doctor," she said firmly. "Do what you can. I will pursue other avenues myself."

"Very well," Phlox agreed, resignedly, clearly vexed by the Vulcan unwillingness to discuss mating habits more openly. "Come over to the scanner and we'll get started."

*******

Phlox had found some irregularities in blood chemistry, and as a stop-gap measure had injected her with a bioregulator. "This will bring down some of the elevated hormone levels temporarily," he explained, "but it will provide only symptomatic relief for a day or two at most. That will give me some time to examine your scans in more detail, however. You should plan to be back here not later than Wednesday afternoon. I will contact you tomorrow with an update."

T'Pol had nodded and climbed off the bio-bed, already feeling somewhat less nauseous. It was possible that by Wednesday, Malcolm would have found her a ship, in which case she would miss that appointment – a chance she was willing to take, for she suspected that there was only one permanent cure for her condition, a cure that Dr. Phlox could not provide.

In fact, it had taken four days before Malcolm had made the contact, four days marked by a slight improvement in her condition due to the treatments, but no breakthrough in Phlox's diagnosis.

The contact had come shortly after supper. "I've been able to make that booking for you to Brazil with a friend of mine, T'Pol," Malcolm had stated cryptically. "He'll be ready to leave around 0800 tomorrow. I expect you'll enjoy the rest of your leave, he's a very good tour guide." She needed no more information, for various possible options had been discussed in advance, with the destination of her purported travel acting as a code for the rendezvous arrangements.

The time of the rendezvous had, in actuality, been 2300 that night, at the San Francisco Aerospace Terminal. There, garbed in a pair of nondescript coveralls with a hat pulled down over her forehead and ears, she had been greeted by one Orlando Vishnakov, an extremely personable gentleman with long, flowing, black curls, flashing black eyes, who sported expensive, well-cut clothes.

Funds had changed hands, considerably less than she had anticipated. "I owe Malcolm one or two," Vishnakov had explained with a grin. "And it never hurts to have friends in high places. Besides, I'm kind of curious about all this." He handed her an identicard whose chip, she was sure, contained her retinal scans and a suitably doctored photograph identifying her as an Earth citizen.

T'Pol raised her eyebrows. "Precisely what did Mr. Reed tell you?"

"Don't worry, not too much – but if he had, it wouldn't be a problem," Vishnakov explained. "My clearance was higher than his when I left the section."

In fact, T'Pol had been more interested in what Vishnakov might know that she did not, but she was reluctant to pry too much for fear he might have second thoughts about the risks involved. They had boarded his vessel, an innocuous looking freighter, and received clearance for departure almost immediately, T'Pol's forged documents passing without comment.

Once they had left Earth's atmosphere, Vishnakov had adjusted a few controls on the command console, and T'Pol had felt considerably more power engage than she had expected for a freighter. Vishnakov had chuckled at her expression. "There's a few tricks under the hood of this baby," he explained, "that make freighter runs a bit faster and more profitable. We're hauling some rather interesting cargo that I was able to offer to carry for a friend of mine who had some engine trouble and an urgent delivery to make. According to our flight plan, destination the research station on Io. Except, according to my friend, we can expect a last minute diversion closer to Europa."

"Europa," T'Pol repeated. "There is nothing on Europa."

Vishnakov grunted and flicked his hair over his shoulder. "I doubt if they intend us to just drop beryllium power cells and protein resequencers in the middle of nowhere. And for a dead moon, there's been an awful lot of shipping activity in the vicinity lately." Finishing the engaging of the autopilot, he turned and examined her critically. "They may not let us close. If I were them … whoever "them" is … I would arrange for a transfer vessel to pick things up. I presume you want to get closer than that."

"Indeed," T'Pol agreed. "And I presume that Mr. Reed did not engage you unless you were fairly resourceful and capable of some advance planning."

Vishnakov grinned again. "Mmm, I suppose not. Let's head back to the hold, then."

There, he had showed her the shipping crates that contained the items to be delivered. The power cells were packaged in individual shielded cartons, each substantially larger than one smallish Vulcan. One of these cartons contained a small compartment hidden behind a false back, appropriately padded, into which T'Pol would be able to insert herself quite comfortably while wearing an emergency evacuation suit, which would provide her additional shielding to compensate for her location within the shielding of the carton.

"The suit's got two hours of air, and there's an extra tank in there with you," Vishnakov explained. "You may not need any of this, depends on how the hand-off goes; if there's a pressurized hold, you'll be fine without. Before we hand you over, I'll make sure we're within reasonable range of Europa – if necessary we'll extract you and come up with something else. That'll get you into the off-loading area, after that you're on your own," he finished.

T'Pol nodded. "That will be satisfactory, Mr. Vishnakov, thank you," she said, mentally reviewing the arrangements. "I believe I will be able to handle it from there."

He nodded speculatively. "I don't suppose you'd tell me why you're so interested in whatever's going on out there? It can't be anything nefarious, or Malcolm would never be involved. That chap's such a straight arrow, even when he's being devious he's principled. He must think it's the right thing to do," he continued thoughtfully, as T'Pol crossed her arms and showed no sign of responding to his probing. "Ah well," he grinned and shrugged, "Perhaps I'll get it out of him eventually. In the meantime, you might as well get some rest, it's getting late and it's still a couple of days to Europa."

*********

The remainder of the trip passed with T'Pol alternating between meditation and rest, attempting to focus on controlling her recurring symptoms, which appeared to have changed somewhat in tenor. The headache had largely passed, but the anxiety had increased in pitch to a feverish nervousness that nothing would alleviate. Only with great strength of will could she refrain from pacing the small ship, and hammering the walls in frustration at their slow pace. Her meditation space, rather than being a place of quiet contemplation, now vibrated with an annoying deep-pitched hum that would not cease – whether this was a metaphor for her nervous state, or an indication of some sort of outside connection, she was unsure. Certainly it did not have the desired calming effect.

As a result, by the time they had reached the transfer point not far from Europa, and she had climbed into the compartment while wearing her EV suit, she was too preoccupied with simply being able to remain still enough to avoid detection to be nervous about what would happen after the transfer was complete.

As it happened, the transfer happened efficiently and without incident. Vishnakov's credentials apparently passed muster, and if the cargo was scanned for humanoid life during the receipt inspection, the shielding around the power cells prevented her detection. The equipment was treated with care, and she barely felt a bump as the carton was passed from one ship to the other. They landed smoothly within 15 minutes of the transfer.

Her suit radio had been wired with an external microphone to pick up sounds outside the crate by direct conduction through the crate's surface, and shortly after landing, she heard the hiss of repressurization, and then the sound of voices approaching. Her crate was placed on some sort of vehicle, and moved to another location on a trip of perhaps 5 minutes duration, passing through doors and down corridors. The crate was then removed, along with the other cargo. The voices echoed slightly as the crate handlers departed the storage area through a door that swished shut behind them. All fell silent.

Forcing herself to wait for sufficient time to ensure that the freight handlers were not returning, T'Pol then carefully opened the door of her compartment. The room was dark, but her EV suit had an internal light, and she turned it on low to provide her enough light to allow her to remove her suit, place it back within the carton, recover an additional satchel that she had filled with a selection of items she might need, and close up the compartment. There was now no sign of disturbance of the shipping crate.

Extracting another light from her satchel, she made her way to the exit and placed the microphone, which she had removed from her suit, against the door, listening for sounds in the corridor outside.

Satisfied that all was quiet, she examined the door controls. It was a simple mechanism; while there might have been some sort of alarm to prevent unauthorized entry, there was no such alarm to prevent exit from the storage area. Checking again for sound outside the door, she opened the door a small amount and inserted a mirror out into the corridor. It extended in either direction a fair way, with no signs or other indicators to suggest an appropriate direction.

She paused and closed her eyes. Yes, there was an indicator, an insistent tug that pulled her in one direction. She took a deep breath – her muscles were vibrating with excess energy. Then she pulled down her hat and exited the room, turning in the direction of the pull.

There appeared to be no security within the parts of the facility that she travelled; unimaginable perhaps that anyone could penetrate into a location that was only known to exist to a very few. She only came close to detection on one occasion, but her sensitive hearing allowed her to hear the approaching footsteps and hide behind a bulkhead until the two individuals, talking casually, passed by. Finally, she stood before a door marked "Chief Engineer". He was not within, the tug continued to pull her onward. However, this was perhaps as good a place as any.

Again, she listened at the door, and, hearing nothing to indicate other occupants, she opened the door and entered silently, shutting the door behind her. The light was on, illuminating a small office, jammed full with technical drawings plastered over the walls, data disks piled on the desk, and multiple display screens. One screen was active.

It displayed a cavernous room, several stories tall. Perhaps thirty or forty people worked purposefully within, moving over and around a gigantic object, completely unrecognizable, but covered in obviously functional components pulsing with energy.

T'Pol watched this screen with intense curiosity, the tug in her mind almost forgotten, as she viewed what was obviously the centrepiece of the facility, the cause of the extreme secrecy and of Tucker's precipitous departure from Enterprise. She examined the drawings on the wall, recognizing his terrible handwriting – her heart pounded as she ran her hand over it. She could barely read the notes he had jotted all over the drawings, and what little she could read did not illuminate her.

Shrugging with intense frustration, she turned and pulled the chair up to the computer located at the desk. She took the first data disk off the delicately balanced pile, inserted it into the data drive, and began to scan its contents. Her eyes darted back and forth, while her fingers touched the screen to scroll as needed. Every few minutes, she paused to absorb what she had read, or to change the disk. An hour passed without her noticing, completely preoccupied with what she was reading.

Without warning, the door opened, and the chief engineer of the Europa Research Station entered his office, intensely perusing a data padd as he closed the door behind him. He looked up to make his way to his desk, and stopped short, as if slammed into a door, an expression of utter shock on his face.

Sitting erect, her hands folded on the desk in front of her, T'Pol stated icily, "Mr. Tucker, I believe you have some explaining to do."

… TBC


	8. Chapter 8

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's, not mine, though they don't deserve it.

A/N: It is assumed that although the overall historical events of TATV did happen, the moment-by-moment details of the events, as well as the personal interactions, would not have been part of the historical record. Therefore, the Enterprise-D holodeck recreation was a dramatization, fabricated as needed to make a better story. And hopefully, I have made a better story than the one they came up with.

********

Chapter 8

Tucker continued to stare at T'Pol in shock for a few moments. Then, his mind spinning, he erupted, "T'Pol, what the hell are you doing here? In my office, messing with my files …" he stopped and rubbed his forehead with his left hand, trying to relieve the headache that had been lurking for days now. He took a deep breath, then continued, "How did you get in here?"

She raised her eyebrows. "The security here is virtually nonexistent. Presumably your security forces were counting on the fact that few people would even know this place existed. Once inside, anyone with resources and determination could wander about the station for hours without being apprehended. However, criminal activity was not my intent. Fortunately for you," she added ominously.

After a moment of nervousness at her decidedly frosty tone, he decided he had better take back the initiative in the interrogation. "Okay, we'll deal with the details of how you got here later." He turned, and started to pace across his office. "I should call security right now and have you incarcerated." He sighed, and then flopped into the visitor's chair in front of his desk. "But I know that'd just end up causing more trouble than it's worth. Fortunately for you," he added, feeling a sudden urge to giggle as he echoed her earlier words. He stifled the upswell of hysteria. "Just give it to me straight. What are you doing here?"

She had lost the momentum of her righteous indignation, and her eyes shifted away from him, all her prepared speeches having evaporated. She had reviewed this moment a hundred … no, a thousand times in her mind. Each time, she had tried to explain what had brought her here. Each time, it had ended badly. Her heart raced, and her palms sweated. His unique odour surrounded her, standing out despite the recirculated air. She closed her eyes, trying to calm her thoughts, and clear her mind of extraneous concerns.

When she opened them again, Trip was leaning forward, looking at her with an expression of concern. "You don't look so hot, T'Pol."

"No," she agreed. "I do not feel "so hot". I have been unwell for some days now."

Trying to stifle his anxiety, he said, frustrated, "So this all makes even less sense. What's wrong? Why come here if you're sick?"

"It is my illness that has prompted my visit here," she replied.

A long pause ensued as he scrutinized her. His head and his heart were pounding in synchrony, making it difficult to think. Finally, he prodded, "You knew I was here?"

She nodded.

"Okay then, so did you come just to see me?"

She nodded again.

"It's been a long time since I played Twenty Questions," he commented, sitting back in his chair, attempting to defuse the tension that thickened the air between them. "How many have I got left?"

Despite her unease, she found herself falling back into their familiar bantering. "Thirteen. If you do not count that one."

"You didn't answer them all though. So those ones don't count," he pointed out. "Sixteen, I think. All right, how did you know I was here?"

"A friend found out for me." She saw no need to compromise Mr. Reed more than necessary, Tucker might eventually suspect but with no proof nothing could be done.

"And you knew I was alive. How?"

This was the difficult part. She searched about, then finally sighed. "After Enterprise returned to Earth, I took a few weeks of leave on Vulcan. While I was there, I spent some time in my mother's house. I saw Koss." Tucker's features clouded over again. "He was – pleasant – to me, and we spent time together. Eventually, it seemed logical for us to resume our bonding."

"Logical?" he exploded incredulously. "It didn't work the first time, why would you think it would work this time?"

"Because you were dead," she replied matter-of-factly. "You were the main obstacle to our union previously."

He was shocked into silence. After a moment, he rubbed his head again, and gestured to indicate that she should continue.

"The ceremony was to involve not just a ceremonial bonding, but a bond of the mind." Tucker frowned at this, but did not speak. T'Pol continued, "It was Koss' wish. I believe he did not think my 'heart' was in it – this was a way for him to be sure of my intent." She paused. "The priest who performed the ceremony was unable to cause the bond to be formed. The attempt – unsuccessful as it was – was rather painful," she elaborated tonelessly.

Tucker was beginning to see where this was leading, and his stomach was alternating between doing squishy circles and backflips. "So the marriage – it didn't happen?" He held his breath while awaiting the answer.

"No, it did not happen," she conceded. He released his breath in a relieved gust.

"The priest and priestess believed that I could not form a new bond because I already had a bondmate." Her indignation at his deception began to return. "A living, breathing, husband," she added scathingly, "despite my opinion that our bond had died years ago, and that you were quite dead." She stopped and glared at him pointedly.

He knew he should feel dismay, shock, confusion at this revelation, and to some degree he did, but threatening to drown them out was an exultation that was hard to disguise. _Her husband. She called me her husband._ "All right T'Pol," he said, managing to keep his face expressionless, "I guess I can see why you're pissed at me, but it's not like either one of us knew! Anyway, none of it was my decision – I was under orders. And frankly, at the time, it didn't seem like such a bad idea – starting over, without this thing –" he gestured vaguely – "hanging over us."

"We will deal with your behaviour in this matter shortly," she indicated ominously. "To continue. After the failed attempt to form the bond with Koss, I was left in a difficult position. Was I a married woman, or not? Were you, in fact, alive? To further add to the situation, I also felt distinctly unwell, the attempt to form the bond apparently having triggered some significant negative physiological responses. The priestess suggested that I needed to determine whether you were, in fact, alive, in order to resolve both my mental and physical distress. It seemed logical, under the circumstances."

"Well," Tucker commented, "if you found me here, you must have managed to find out a good deal of the story."

"A part of it," she replied. "Captain Archer confirmed the subterfuge involved in your death."

Tucker frowned. "We were under direct orders not to tell you anything about this."

"I have been the Captain's second for many years, Trip," she pointed out, unconsciously slipping back into the more intimate form of address that she used when they were in private and at ease. "I have learned how to achieve my objectives in dealing with him. He also recognizes when resistance is futile." The smallest smile slid across her face, so quickly as to be almost unnoticeable.

Despite himself, Tucker smirked, imagining that conversation. "So did ya tell him that I was a deadbeat husband that you needed to track down?"

His cocky grin elicited a distinct response that required T'Pol to suppress the urge to find other uses for his lips. "It was not necessary. And he did not ask. However, he did not tell me where you were or why you were here. He claimed he did not know."

"He probably didn't," Tucker commented quickly, trying to head off the inevitable discussion of the nature of the facility. "All right, I think I see where this is going. Sort of… So I suppose it was Malcolm gave you the info on where I was." T'Pol raised her eyebrow at this accurate supposition, but did not contradict him. He hesitated, and then continued, "But how does coming here to see me solve your health problems, whatever they are?" He held his breath again, hoping this time for some honesty.

"The Vulcan bond is of the mind, as you know," T'Pol obliquely reminded him of that time, when their bond was discovered, and the two of them had been in mental communication on a frequent basis. Trip nodded. "It is also of the body, however. The Vulcan mind and body are inextricably linked." He nodded again, a little more unsure. "The bond we shared was dormant. However, though neglected, it was still strong. Once reawakened, it seems to have required … reaffirming."

At this point, Trip looked lost. "Reaffirming? What does that mean?"

T'Pol avoided his gaze, and stood up from behind his desk. She walked over to the small viewport and gazed out at the forbidding landscape. It might not be necessary to tell him the total truth of the _plak'tow_, the blood fever, for their bond lacked the Vulcan male physiological component, and hence, her response was unlikely to be as violent. But some sort of explanation was required. She turned back to him. "The true bonding of Vulcans involves the mind, and the body. The bonding requires renewal at intervals, through physical intimacy, and our physiology drives us to it, with various possible effects. Initial symptoms may include irrationality, uncontrollable mood swings, headaches and nausea of varying severity." She turned to look at him. His expression clearly indicated recognition, and she could feel the same recognition in their bond. She noted, "You have experienced this yourself."

"Pretty much," he agreed with a sigh. "A few days ago, I felt something – some sort of buzzing in my head, that wouldn't leave. I started thinking about – well, about you. Been feeling depressed and anxious, with a non-stop headache, ever since."

She nodded. "I do not know whether you are echoing my symptoms or feeling them yourself. I do not suppose it really matters."

A silence ensued. Then he commented, "You said initial symptoms. What happens after that?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "The symptoms become more debilitating."

He didn't need the bond to tell him she was not being totally honest with him, but decided that it didn't need pressing at the moment. "So like it or not, we're still stuck with each other," he concluded, his throat tightening.

She nodded, and whispered, "I am sorry."

Suddenly angry, he stood up and leaned across the desk towards her. "I don't want you to be sorry. I don't want you to be bonded to me if I make you so miserable. Can't your priests figure out how to get rid of this thing?" He gestured vaguely between the two of them.

She looked at him, no longer attempting to hide her distress, for he would feel it regardless. "You do not make me miserable, Trip." He stared at her, angry disbelief written across his face. "Well, not only," she modified her statement. "I once told you that Vulcans do not experience fear. I lied." His disbelief tempered somewhat, and he looked uncertain. She continued. "I first felt true fear when I was assigned to Earth. Like the entire Vulcan race, I feared humans, human culture, human ambition, human emotion, for what it could do to me and to my planet. We are taught to fear other cultures from a very young age, although it is couched in terms of superiority and contempt. After a time on Earth, I was able to see through the prejudice, and master most of that fear. But the day I was assigned to Enterprise, I was terrified. And there were two humans who more than anything else personified everything about that fear – Captain Archer, and you."

He sat back in his chair, reading the truth of her words. "I understand why you felt that way about Jon. Vulcans had been holding us back for decades, and he was one of the people trying to make sure we got out from under your thumbs. Soval admitted that you were all terrified of what would happen."

She nodded. "Captain Archer exemplified everything about human ambitions that we feared would destroy our hard-earned tranquility, and our mastery of the quadrant."

"So, then, that explains him. Why me?" He gazed at her piercingly, and she could feel his mind tugging at hers, teasing the feelings out of her, making her relive everything about those early days in his presence. Her nerve endings tingled, recalling.

"Captain Archer represented human ambition, and the drive to be more than we were prepared to allow. You – you represented human emotion. That first day," she paused, remembering, "I could _feel_ you." Her hand rose to touch the air between them, as though she caressed his face. "Your emotions were so close to the surface, so _real_… Vulcans are touch-telepaths, that is why I could not shake your hand. But even a meter away from you, I could sense you. You terrified me."

A small smile crossed his face. "Well, I guess that feeling was mutual, then. You scared the pants off me. If you could read me so well, you must have known that."

T'Pol raised her eyebrows. "I do not believe at the time I could have distinguished your fears from my own. At any rate, my fears proved not to be groundless. You and Captain Archer between you were able to undermine years of discipline. By the end of my first year on Enterprise, I had lost the strength of my convictions. I no longer knew that our way was right, and true. I suspected Vulcan motives, and sympathized with humans. And I desired to feel emotion, to find a way to express it, without letting it rule me as it had ruled the Vulcan people for millenia. And my emotions were never closer to the surface than when I was in your presence." She paused, and reseated herself in his chair, taking a few long breaths.

Tucker watched her, seeing her truly for the first time, allowing himself to feel the truth of her words. Even that first day, he realized, there had likely been a germ of the link that joined them now, formed the first time they had laid eyes on each other. Perhaps it was the Vulcan equivalent of love at first sight, he pondered to himself. Certainly hit me like a ton of bricks, although it took me a long time to recognize it for what it was.

Finally, she continued. "I had managed to hide most of this from you, and from myself. Until the Expanse."

The memory of that dark year, punctuated by death, loss, terror, washed over him again, and for a brief moment, he relived the depth of the emotions he had lived through. Gazing into her eyes, he realized she relived them with him. He began now to perceive the true extent of what she had done for him, the sacrifice she had made, in spending the time with him in neuropressure sessions, her telepathic abilities causing her every emotional nerve to jangle in resonance with his.

T'Pol cocked her head, able to follow somewhat the train of his thoughts. "I believe, at that time, I was not fully sane," she mused thoughtfully. "Grief and shock, responses that a human should have been able to deal with, were proving overpowering for you; imagine how they affected me. Phlox's suggestion that I help you through it would have been a sound medical recommendation, had you and I not shared such a strong connection. As it was, the combination of the intense exposure to your emotions, and to the trellium that occurred early in our mission, left me … rather mentally unstable." She grimaced slightly, reliving that time. "My actions were not rational, by Vulcan standards or by human ones, I suspect. I hurt you, then, and for that I am truly sorry."

He felt the truth of her statement, and her regret. He asked softly, "If you could do it over again …"

T'Pol sighed. "I have made many unwise decisions over the past few years. However, helping you then was not one of them. For that, I have no regret at all." She gazed directly at him for the first time in the conversation, as though trying to convince him of her sincerity in this, at least.

"I've got a few regrets myself," Trip replied. "But I guess I don't regret that either." He smiled at her gently, and for a moment, neither spoke, sharing in a wordless communion.

"I was speaking of fear," she finally continued, breaking the silence. "At that point in our relationship," -- for such it was, they had both admitted it now -- "I feared for you, and for every heartbreak you might experience. And I needed you. You were intoxicating, you made me feel … I exhibited appallingly poor judgement in a number of ways over those months. Now is not the time to tell …" she trailed off, waves of shame emanating to him through the bond. It was remarkable how easily now he could sense her every feeling now, it seemed that all the walls had come crashing down.

"It's all right," he murmured, sensing her distress. "I've been pretty appallingly stupid a few times myself," he noted, recalling the incident with the cogenitor. She nodded, an expression of sympathy flitting across her expressive eyes. How could he have ever thought them cold and forbidding? he wondered, finding himself distracted by their dark beauty.

She flushed, and he felt his heart begin to beat faster and his palms sweat. _Not now, doofus_, he told himself firmly, and vividly imagined an icy cold shower awaiting him in his quarters. The smallest of smiles again crossed her lush lips, and he suppressed any further inappropriate thoughts.

"You know what happened after that," she continued. "I hid nothing from you then but the extent of my true feelings for you – they had grown to almost unbearable proportions. I feared rejection when you found the truth. I feared that if you did reciprocate my feelings, you would soon tire of me. I feared that I had made myself a further outcast from Vulcan society, and would have nothing to return to when you rejected me. So even as I was drawn to you, I pushed you away, as best I could … and then, there was Elizabeth."

He could stand it no longer. He reached across the desk and took her hand, finally touching her again after such a long separation. She was hot, so hot, like a desert … every time he touched her, he felt her alien nature, but now it only made the connection sweeter. Her eyes glistened as she relived the emotion of those events.

"I could no longer bear to feel your pain, your guilt, your need for me that I knew would turn to disappointment and anger when you knew me better. I avoided contact with you, but it only dulled the feelings. I do not know how, but suddenly, one morning, I awoke and I felt nothing. I had managed to close down the bond. The relief was an almost unbearable agony." She looked at him pleadingly, needing his understanding.

He squeezed her hand – how could he help but understand, when he felt her pain as though it was his own? How could he blame her – she had been raised to believe that mastery of emotion was the only route that would preserve her race, and perhaps they were right. Certainly, her relationship with him had brought her little benefit over the years, leading up to this situation they found themselves in now.

"I'll forgive you for shutting me out, if you'll forgive me for givin' up on you," he said gently. "I should have tried harder. After all you'd done for me …"

She twisted her hand to grip his. "We have both made mistakes. Our communications skills have not been the highest," she noted wryly. "Perhaps we can make more of an effort …"

He gave her a soft smile that threatened to turn her stomach upside down. "Yeah, maybe so."

Any remnant of her previous adverse physiological symptoms had disappeared, replaced now by a number of other, more pressing, needs. She saw him catch his breath. Somewhat hoarsely, she inquired, "Is that door locked?"

Holding her gaze, he reached back and slapped at the panel beside the door, turning the lock indicator orange. Then he pulled her across the desk toward him, sweeping papers and data disks on to the floor with disregard.

Just as his lips approached hers, a piercing alarm sounded, with a frantic voiceover, "Stage two has activated. I repeat, stage two has activated. Mr. Tucker, report to the command centre immediately."

"Sonofabitch!" Tucker yelled, and, pulling her up with him, he toggled the door lock and then pelted full speed down the corridor, T'Pol's hand still firmly clutched in his own.

… TBC


	9. Chapter 9

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Fix the Finale Fic

Disclaimer: All Paramount's – or is it CBS's? -- not mine, though they really really don't deserve it now .

A/N: Moving on from TATV – for those of you who insist it's canon … well, read on.

********

Chapter 9

T'Pol's scrutiny of Tucker's files after she had broken his encryption code (not a difficult task since it had been based upon a code they had both learned from Lt. Sato) had given her considerable information. As they ran full tilt down the corridor, which descended gradually on a gentle slope, she knew they were headed towards the centre of the facility, buried meters under the surface of Europa.

Tucker had let go of her hand, counting on her to keep up – not difficult for her given her Vulcan physiology, shaky though her health might be at the moment. A number of other individuals were also running in the same direction, but they moved aside as Tucker overtook them, letting him lead the way.

As they passed, she received a number of curious glances, but clearly the nature of the crisis was such that the appearance of an unaccounted-for Vulcan visitor was not the highest priority.

They reached a set of double doors. Tucker skidded to a stop, yanked one open, and motioned her through ahead of him. They entered the command centre, a room about 20 meters across that overlooked the core of the facility. Tucker strode to the railing and glanced down upon the massive structure that pulsed with energy beneath them, and the staff scurrying around the lower area. Then he turned and scrutinized the display boards that lined the walls.

"All right, Kominsky, what happened? Any immediate danger?" he demanded, as his eyes darted back and forth across the boards. Some displayed readouts that were entirely alien in character. Others were Earth issue, displaying a variety of parameters – temperature, pressure, electric field, energy flow. Spectral emission distributions updated every few seconds on one panel, while particle flux data scrolled rapidly past on the next.

Kominsky, a fortyish woman with fiery red hair, glanced at T'Pol nervously, before she handed Tucker a padd and replied, "Not that we can tell. It wasn't anything we did sir. Nothing going on here but monitoring and compiling data for at least a couple of hours – we couldn't have triggered anything."

"Hmmph," Tucker replied, his eyes scanning the status report. "No, you're right. See here?" He pointed at one of the alien readouts. "This is stored energy," he glanced sideways at T'Pol, as the explanation was for her benefit, "it's been drifting up and down for weeks, but look at the last couple of days – there's been a definite upward trend. I think it's been working to get enough energy to trigger the next stage. See how it dropped as soon as the cascade started over here?" He gestured to another readout that displayed a bewildering variety of colours and shapes, and then spun around and scrutinized some of the other readouts. "What's the overall energy increment?"

"At least a factor of ten, sir," one of the junior engineers replied.

"Dammit," Tucker muttered, "and we thought it was bad before. All right, everyone, I need round-the-clock monitoring of this readout, and set a slope and threshold trigger. We don't want to be caught napping again. How much more do you think she's got in her?" he asked Kominsky.

She shrugged, and said, "Doesn't look like it's straining yet, does it? Based on what we just saw when number two kicked in, and the size of three and four," she pointed at two large sections of the machine that still appeared to be slumbering, "there's lots more in reserve."

"Yeah," he sighed, running his fingers through his hair. He turned to T'Pol. "Well, might as well make yourself useful, T'Pol. Do you know what's going on?"

"I believe so…" T'Pol replied, "The device has just …"

She was interrupted as another individual burst through the double doors, a small man of perhaps sixty, dressed in office clothes. "Tucker, update me," he ordered, and then, noticing T'Pol, he started and continued with disbelief, "Who's she and what the hell is she doing here?"

"She's our new consultant, Brodeur, on my authority," Tucker said in a brisk tone. T'Pol admired the apparent nonchalance he displayed at this flagrant bit of fabrication. He continued authoritatively, "Right now the best thing you can do is just let us get on with it – I'll update you as soon as we've got anything definitive."

"I didn't authorize any consultants," Brodeur wheeled on Tucker. "And especially not a Vulcan one."

"No, well, I'm the engineering authority here, and if I say we need help, we get it," Tucker replied. "Not every bit of paperwork has to cross your desk. Fighting over who's got authority isn't going to help. Right now, I think it would be a good idea to push that evacuation plan one stage forward."

Brodeur pinned him with a steely glance; then clearly deciding that dealing with an unknown Vulcan consultant was not the current priority, he moved over to one of the human interface panels and started punching at the screen, while keeping a jaundiced eye on T'Pol. She was sure that at the next possible opportunity, Brodeur would be putting a query through on her to his superiors.

She also noticed that one of the senior engineers, as yet unidentified, was watching her with particular interest also. He had recognized her, she suspected, and was speculating as to how she got here. Possibly he was Intelligence – in which case he would know that her presence had not been authorized in advance by anyone. At any rate, it appeared that she had passed the first hurdle, acceptance having been achieved temporarily, at least.

She turned back to Tucker, and continued as though she had not been interrupted, "…the device has just triggered the second stage of its power-up procedure. There are two more stages before it becomes fully operational." She paused, unsure how far he wanted her to go.

"And?" Tucker prompted her to continue.

"And at that time, the device will be ready to perform whatever its function is, which is as yet unknown," she concluded. An accurate, if vague, assessment of the situation.

"So what are our options?" he prompted her. Clearly, this topic would have been discussed already hundreds of times; nevertheless, she had seen him use this technique before to advantage. Asking for a fresh, critical perspective on the team's work from an outsider often yielded new ways of thinking about an old problem, and she had been that critic many times previously on Enterprise.

"First, priorities must be clear," she replied. "What is the number one priority?"

"Earth's safety," Tucker stated without hesitating.

"And to ensure Earth's safety, the function of the device must be understood. Is it a weapon, or something else?" Placing her arms behind her back, she began to pace across the room, pondering the questions. "How long ago was it placed here, and by whom? Is it fully functional? Is it automated, or is it under someone's control?" She paused, and enquired, no longer rhetorically, "Have the readouts been fully translated?"

"More or less," one of the junior engineers replied, after Tucker nodded in her direction. "We've been able to understand the majority of the functions that pertain to routine monitoring, energy flow and such. The difficulty is that we have absolutely no frame of reference for the actual function of the unit. There's just not enough context here to let us translate those functions. Whoever built this, they didn't leave any additional documentation, manuals, logs – nothing. Or at least if they did, we haven't found it yet."

"So," Tucker picked up, "We know this much. It comes with an array to beam energy in just about any direction," he gestured, "currently buried below the surface of Europa. Stage two involved a lot of energy generation, enough to kickstart the power up of the rest of the facility." There was a short silence as they all pondered the implications. "The next stage we think will involve deploying the array, while the final stage is the energy beam."

T'Pol walked over to the railing, and pondered the area below, as the rest of the engineering team returned to their duties after a nod from Tucker. He leaned on the railing beside her.

"And the energy storage capabilities of the facility make it possible that the beam is powerful enough to destroy Earth, even from this distance?" she queried quietly enough that the rest of the team could not hear her. She had read this conclusion in the reports in Tucker's office, but she found it astonishing. The energy required from this distance would be phenomenal, and the device did not appear large enough to provide even a tiny fraction of that amount.

"We're not sure," Tucker replied, sombrely, also keeping his voice inaudible to the rest of the team. "But the energy readouts are all out of proportion to its size. This thing is tapping into some energy source we haven't identified."

"Perhaps it has nothing to do with Earth at all," T'Pol pointed out. "Perhaps its location here is a coincidence."

"It didn't just start up now for no reason, T'Pol," Tucker replied. "Our best guess at its age is about 3,000 years. It must have been sitting here for a damn long time waiting."

"So whoever built it, knew there was a pre-space civilization on Earth at the time," T'Pol mused. "Placing it on Europa put it well outside the normal space-lanes. How was it discovered?"

"The initial energy surge was picked up by Jupiter station during routine monitoring," Tucker replied. "It was just dumb luck, they could easily have missed it, but one of the engineers thought it was a glitch in the system and dug around till she realized it was real. They sent over a team to investigate, and discovered this. Didn't take too long for them to realize the magnitude of the issue and notify Earth."

"And Earth's government realized that public morale would not stand up well to yet another alien threat to Earth over the space of ten years. The Xindi, the Romulans, now this," T'Pol mused.

"Hence the hush hush," Tucker finished for her. "Not to mention the presence of a phenomenally powerful energy source of unknown origin that's driving the thing."

"I begin to understand the rationale," she admitted, frostily, "but the degree of paranoia involved in the manner of your disappearance still seems excessive." Tucker could sense the panic she hid beneath that Vulcan exterior, as she remembered being told of his death. He managed to refrain from touching her, but he tried to project soothing emotions, not knowing how much she could read of him.

"Like I said, T'Pol, it wasn't my idea. Hell, they didn't even let my parents know till after the funeral," he pointed out gently. "Under the circumstances, telling you was going to be a bit farther down the list."

She nodded, not looking at him, but he thought he could sense an easing of her distress. This bonding thing, done right, sure made communicating easier, he thought to himself – in the old days, her outwardly rigid attitude would have fooled him utterly, and the conversation likely would have degenerated quickly.

"So," he reverted back to the main topic. "We're making progress, but it's not fast enough. Not at the rate this is going. We need a breakthrough. Actually," he continued with a small grin, "having you here is probably the best thing that could have happened. We always did make a good team when it came to solving this kind of thing."

He thought he detected a small smile flit across her lips. Without question, he felt the burst of pleasure his words caused her. "We did. And I suppose, under the circumstances," here he felt a distinct regret emanating from her, "that we need to focus on the task at hand rather than our personal issues."

"What about your – you know, ill health?" he asked, unsure of the implications.

"I believe the symptoms will be manageable now that I am here," she said thoughtfully. "But should Mr. Brodeur decide that I should be removed from the station there will be problems," she added dourly.

She sensed the angry possessiveness that emanated from Tucker as re replied, "Not gonna happen T'Pol, not as long as I'm Chief Engineer of this facility. Besides, removing you now would be pointless. You can't transmit out with the local jamming that's been set up, and no matter how distrustful the powers that be may be of Vulcan's reliability as an ally, they won't believe that you're here to sabotage the project. Might as well take advantage of the extra expertise now that you're here. But you're right about one thing, I need to get him sorted out sooner rather than later."

He pushed away from the railing and strode over to the monitor that Brodeur was using. He spoke to Brodeur quietly enough that even her Vulcan hearing could not distinguish the words over the background hum of the facility. Brodeur's eyes flashed angrily, and he headed out the doors without looking back. Tucker gestured to T'Pol and she preceded him out, following Brodeur to an office a few doors down the hall.

Brodeur seated himself at this desk, placing his hands face down on the desk surface, and pinned Tucker with a glare. "This had better be good."

Tucker indicated that T'Pol should seat herself, and then he, too, sat in one of the uncomfortable surplus office chairs that seemed to be standard issue in the facility.

"All right, you and I both know she doesn't have permission to be here," Tucker started out. "So we need to figure out how to do damage control so HQ doesn't get their knickers in a twist."

"Why should I attempt to help you cover this up?" Brodeur asked indignantly. "An unauthorized entry into a secure facility by a citizen of a foreign power? If I don't report it, it's arguably treason."

"Two reasons," Tucker replied shortly. "One: we don't need the distraction. It'll just cause an uproar, affect morale, and cause an interplanetary incident over nothing. Two: T'Pol and I have worked together for ten years. Between us, we've sorted out a hundred problems like this one. We're the best bet Earth's got right now, and if you start raising red flags, you're risking everything. Listen," Tucker said, leaning forward and staring earnestly at the administrator, "you and I haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but you've gotta believe that I'm not going to jeopardize Earth over this. Do you trust me?"

Brodeur sighed and leaned back in his chair. He looked at T'Pol uncertainly, and then addressed her directly. "I still haven't heard an explanation of what you're doing here."

She hesitated, and glanced at Tucker. Total honesty did not seem appropriate, and yet neither did prevarication. "Mr. Tucker and I were close. I obtained information that indicated that his death had been fabricated. I decided to see what I could find out. My investigation led me here."

It was obvious that she was omitting a great deal in this explanation. T'Pol gazed directly at him, trying to appear transparently honest. Brodeur took a deep breath, frowned, and turned back to Tucker. "If you screw this up …"

"If I screw this up," Tucker replied dryly, "we'll be in much bigger trouble that having a few government types ticked off with us. I'm not stupid and neither are you. This is our best shot, and if they'd given me the option, I'd have had her here months ago. Let's just be thankful that T'Pol's here to help us, and get back to work."

Brodeur rubbed his eyes, and sighed, "God knows we need all the help we can get. We could use ten times the resources and still not succeed. All this ridiculous cloak and dagger – they should just admit we've got a problem and put everything on it."

"Yeah, well, I guess that's why you and I aren't in elected office or intelligence, huh?" Tucker agreed. "You keep working on getting us more resources, and don't look a gift horse in the mouth. And T'Pol and I will get back to work." He stood and suggested by his stance that he was waiting for dismissal.

Brodeur looked back at T'Pol and said dryly, "Well, allow me to welcome you to the Europa Research Facility, _T'sai_ T'Pol, and here's hoping the relationship is a beneficial one."

"Indeed, Mr. Brodeur, it is my pleasure to be able to assist," she replied, standing and inclining her head in a gesture of acknowledgement. "I have worked amongst humans for the past decade, and I should regret having all of my efforts to civilize you be wasted by the annihilation of your planet."

Tucker looked at her briefly in horror, but to his astonishment, Brodeur burst out in a guffaw of laughter.

"Okay, get the hell out of here both of you. I'll want a full written update in two hours," he added, waving them out. "And Tucker, when you've got time, I've got some issues with the evacuation plan that will need work."

Tucker nodded acknowledgement. After they had exited the office, he turned to T'Pol, hands on his hips, and expostulated, "Geez, T'Pol, it took me a month to get him to loosen up, and you got him to laugh in the first five minutes." He shook his head, and then gestured her ahead of him down the corridor.

As they strode back towards the facility core, T'Pol pondered how often she and Tucker had together stood between Earth and potential destruction in the past decade. It was a strange, but oddly satisfying, way to forge a relationship. Tucker motioned her onto the floor of the core, and she gazed up at the structure three stories high, pulsing with energy from an unknown source.

"Well, Mr. Tucker, we've got a lot of work to do," she said to him, and he grinned.

"Then I guess it's time we got serious, huh?"

… TBC


	10. Chapter 10

Fix the Finale Fic

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Rating: NC-17

Disclaimer: All Paramount's – or is it CBS's? -- not mine, though they really really don't deserve it now .

A/N: Moving on from TATV – for those of you who insist it's canon … well, read on.

********

Chapter 10

In the 37 hours since she had arrived at the Europa facility, T'Pol had encountered few obstacles to a successful integration into the engineering team. She had worked side-by-side with Tucker essentially non-stop from the time they had left Brodeur's office, and while there had been no breakthroughs, they had made some small progress in understanding subsidiary functions of the stage II device, and had also greatly improved the constant monitoring of critical functions so that nothing important would be missed when the next stage implemented.

However, two hours ago Brodeur had insisted that they both get some sleep, and had escorted T'Pol to her new quarters. A pair of simple coveralls and some personal toiletries had been all that was required to meet her basic needs for the time being.

Except, of course, for one very basic need that still went unfulfilled.

As she laid in her bunk, attempting to fall asleep, her brain continued to whirl, the events of the past few days mixed into a maelstrom of memories and emotions. Knowing that her _telsu_ was nearby was both a relief and an agony. Her soul was now content, for she could feel his presence almost constantly, and her unsettling physiological symptoms had largely subsided.

Largely, but not completely. While the mental side of their relationship was following the Vulcan way, the physical side seemed more to parallel human norms. And the bond made the physical connection they shared even more difficult to ignore.

Meditation, unsatisfactory to start with due to the absence of the ritual candle, had failed to quiet the intense need she felt for his touch, or to suppress the vivid imaginings she had of being alone in his presence. She knew that her thoughts were inappropriate to the circumstances – as Chief Engineer of the facility, his involvement with her would be difficult to justify or explain without going into the details of their union, which would be both an unnecessary distraction, and bad for discipline. And yet the simple fact of his nearness, just a few doors down the hallway, was an even greater distraction.

After perhaps an hour of tossing in her bunk, her covers tangled about her naked form in a most un-Vulcan manner, T'Pol abandoned her attempts to sleep and padded over to her monitor. She settled down to absorb herself in reading the remainder of the reports that she had not had time to review on her first sitting in Tucker's office.

Just then, however, her door chime sounded. She did not need the bond to know who was there. She quickly pulled on the coverall Brodeur had provided and opened the door, allowing Trip to slip through, a sheepish expression on his face.

"I shouldn't be here."

"Probably not," she agreed. He paced across the room, and then turned.

"I couldn't sleep."

"Nor could I," she admitted.

They stood facing one another, briefly at a loss as to how to proceed. Then Trip suggested, nervously, "Maybe we could talk? Or something?"

She indicated that he should sit on her bunk beside her. After a momentary hesitation, he acquiesced, and seated himself.

After another awkward moment of silence, they both began to speak at the same time, and stopped just as quickly. He gave her one of his most endearing, shy little grins, and gently caressed her hand, saying, "Ladies first."

She took a breath. "Perhaps you should start. Communicating is still not easy for me."

He nodded, understanding. "I guess what I need to know is, how do we go ahead with this? I mean, for the next little while we probably need to stay below the sensors, but maybe that's a good thing, since we need to figure out just what's going to happen anyway."

She frowned slightly. "On Vulcan, we rarely know our chosen mates at all well, before the marriage ceremony. Typically, the mated relationship involves first, the marriage, then time spent becoming acquainted with one's mate, forming the rudiments of a bond, followed hopefully by the development of some affection and friendship, and eventually, when appropriate, a physical union."

"Once every seven years," Trip interjected dryly.

"Usually," she agreed.

"Well," he said, ticking off on the fingers of his left hand, "No official marriage, but I gather that's kind of a formality at this point. We're pretty well acquainted, I think, after 10 years? And the friendship is pretty solid. Maybe with a little work on the communication side." She nodded. "And judging from what I can feel through the bond, I'm pretty happy with the status of the affection." She felt the bond tweak with his mental caress. "We've done the bond. And the physical union thing." At this point he'd more than run out of fingers, so he waved his hand questioningly. "So what's left?"

She shook her head. "I am not sure."

He took her hand again, and brought it up to his lips. "Well, it has been seven years …" His eyes twinkled as he watched for her response.

Her lips twitched as she returned his gaze, and then she closed her eyes as his lips dropped to hers. He pushed the coverall off her shoulders, revealing entirely bare golden-hued flesh beneath.

"Mmm," he murmured, "Glad you were expecting me." He moved his lips gently on down her jawline, her neck and across her shoulder. She managed to keep her hands steady as she undid the zipper on his coverall, and pushed it off his upper torso, revealing a taut gray t-shirt beneath. She pushed him away, to permit her to put her hands beneath the front of his t-shirt, palming his chest, and then yanking the shirt off unceremoniously over his head. Another minute of concentrated effort had them both quite naked on her bed.

Their coupling was fierce and joyous – only their second, in a relationship that had endured seven years of emotional and physical drought. As she laid in his arms some minutes later, her head pillowed on his chest, she felt more than heard his chuckle.

"What do you find so amusing, _thy'la_?" she enquired.

"You make me feel like a fifteen year old," Trip replied. "That wouldn't exactly make the record books for stamina." He sensed her puzzlement through their bond, and continued. "It's normally expected that a fella will spend a little more time," he explained. "Work up to things."

"Surely it was evident to you that everything was entirely satisfactory," T'Pol replied, splaying her fingers across his abdomen. "And I can assure you that seven years is quite long enough to 'work up to things'. Had you taken any longer I should have begun to be concerned."

His laughter resonated in her ear as it pressed against his chest. "Your sense of humour really is improving, darlin'." Her mental amusement radiated back to him. After a few moments, he sighed. "You know, I can't stay."

"I know, thy'la," she replied. "It would not be proper under the circumstances. And if you do not go now …"

He sighed again and kissed the top of her head. "One of these days, we'll have the time …" She moved off him and gently pushed him off the bed. He tugged the covers back over her, and then pulled his clothes back on. She observed with ill-concealed pleasure the movement of his muscles as he pulled his t-shirt over his head.

Dressed, he leaned over again to kiss her gently on the lips and caress her cheek. "Still time for a few hours of sleep. I'll stop by to pick you up at 0600." She nodded, and watched him depart with a pang of regret. A longer period of time spend together would have been pleasant, she thought, as she turned off the lights and rolled over. However, she found herself drifting off to sleep almost immediately, a pleasurable ache suffusing her body.

******************

"It's not an inductor, that's for sure," mused Chief Engineer Tucker, crouching in front of the large, irregularly glowing object that sat exposed before them. "Not much in the way of capacitance. The energy flows are immense. Occasional bursts of mid-range particle emission, no apparent pattern. Even more occasional tachyon bursts. What can it possibly be doing?"

T'Pol stood behind him, her arms folded across her chest, a severe expression on her face. It was apparent that she disapproved of the device, or at least of its unwillingness to behave rationally. "Perhaps if we list all of the things it is not, it will become more apparent what it is?"

"Okay," Tucker agreed, rocking back on his heels. "It's not a source of power, even through it's routing a lot. The energy it's routing appears not to be used, so it's currently not doing whatever it would normally do that would use it."

T'Pol nodded. "Unless it is a power transmission device. Which it cannot be, as it appears to be at the end of the circuit; the energy is being routed back to the source."

Tucker frowned. "No, wait, you may be on to something. If it were a power transmission device, and it appears to be unconnected by conventional means, then maybe it's meant for remote power transmission."

T'Pol squinted at the item. "I suppose that is possible. But it does not appear to be connected to the main transmission array. Why would they transmit remotely from here, when a conventional connection to the array would be more efficient? And how could it transmit without a small local array?"

Tucker started to push himself up off the floor. Halfway up, the ground beneath them began to rumble with a deep vibration that momentarily knocked him back onto his rear. "What the …" he expostulated, scrambling back up to his feet. The room suddenly was a hive of activity, people rushing to their monitoring stations

T'Pol scrutinized the status display in front of her. "See here," she pointed.

"Damn thing's kicked in again," Tucker said, trying to mask his anxiety with anger. "Another stage."

"We will have more information this time," T'Pol assured him. "The monitoring in place is much more detailed than before."

Her assurance was correct. The information poured in within the first few minutes, overwhelming the capacity of the automatic systems to sort and process. Tucker divided the engineering teams into several sub-teams, each trying to compile and summarize the data relating to specific aspects of the device's behaviour. Some hours later, after several team meetings in which information was swapped and chewed over, Trip and T'Pol retired to his office to further mull over the observations.

"So," Trip said, rubbing his eyes wearily. "Some form of information transfer."

"Agreed," T'Pol replied. "But not just abstract information, I think."

"No," he agreed. "Too much energy involved. Information transfer as in molecular reconstitution. A giant transporter," he summarized. "No, not giant. Mammoth. Gargantuan. On a scale we've never imagined."

"Large enough to potentially transport and reconstitute megatons of matter," T'Pol continued. "With Europa as the source of supplemental materials and energy."

"They could never hope to contain the energy involved in reconstituting that much matter from scratch," he acquiesced thoughtfully. "So they used Europa as a source of selected raw materials – use the transporter to pull in extra atoms locally as needed. With Europa's combination of frozen surface, and molten core, a good chunk of the atoms needed, light and heavy, are available right here."

"And what is not directly available is created from energy, as our transporter does. An ingenious combination."

"But the energy requirements should be phenomenal," Tucker pointed out.

"Indeed," T'Pol nodded. "That does not seem to have bothered the designers."

"No, whatever energy source they're using, there seems to be plenty to spare," he agreed. "If we could figure out what they've tapped into … okay, wait a minute. Maybe it's not that they've got a special energy source. Maybe they've just figured out how to use it better. It's got to have something to do with the tachyon emission," he mumbled, scrutinizing the chart that plotted tachyon energy vs time. "Maybe … maybe they figured out how to convert space-time energy fields through projection!" This revelation caused him to run his fingers through his hair, grown somewhat long after his prolonged stay on Europa, leaving it spiking in several different directions.

T'Pol resisted the urge to smooth it down. "You mean project time and space along different axes?" she queried, trying to follow his line of thought.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Bear with me here. Normal space-time has four dimensions, x, y, z and t. Each variable has to be positive at all times."

"There is no such thing as negative time or space," T'Pol summarized.

"Right. But we have no problem with deltas on the spatial axes that are negative; space can expand or contract in theory. But time – time can only go in one direction, so far as we can manage it."

"Hence the Vulcan science academy and time travel …" T'Pol commented dryly.

He grinned. "And, as we know, it ain't necessarily so. But we've never figured out how to do it. How to make delta t negative."

She frowned slightly. "Project along different axes."

"Mm hmm. Right now, we can change the apparent dimensions of space by rotating it; x gets longer while y gets shorter. It's all just a projection, of course, and the total is conserved. We haven't broken any laws, it just looks like it if you don't take the whole into account. So if we knew how to include time in the projection …"

"Then the total would still remain a constant, and no laws would be broken. Time could be negative …"

"Or, alternately, hugely positive," he continued, his excitement growing. "Which could decrease space along one axis more than we've ever been able to achieve."

"Making transport over long distances possible with less energy than we've previously postulated …"

"Provided you're willing to wait a few decades for the transport to occur." He smacked his hand in frustration on the desk. "That makes no sense, who'd have any use for a transport that could take decades, when you could send things directly through space faster than that?"

"Perhaps you should not be thinking of this in those terms," T'Pol mused. "This facility could represent something that has a relatively unique function. What if the builders were prepared for that delay? This structure was built thousands of years ago," she pointed out. "And has been sitting dormant for all that time. Perhaps a transport that took decades would be a relatively minor delay, on the scale of things."

"Triggered by something," he pointed out. "What?"

"That seems fairly obvious," she replied. "Human activity."

He did some rapid mental calculations. "The research and construction stations," he said, dismay spreading across his features.

"Indeed," she agreed. "Human activity this far out in the solar system has only existed for the past few decades. Suppose this station was designed to respond only to signs of intelligent life."

"Signs that that life had spread beyond its birthplace, out into the solar system," he picked up. "The station was placed here at about the time that humanity started to show signs of technological growth. As a monitoring station, in the first place. And once that technological growth had spread well past the planet of origin …"

"Then the next phase of the response could be triggered," she continued. "Response that involves an elaborate transport system, capable of moving large masses of objects into place, but taking decades to do so."

The horror on his face was now even more pronounced. "Any civilization prepared to monitor us for a few thousand years, wouldn't care if it took a few decades to implement their response."

"No," T'Pol agreed, "it would normally take considerably longer than that for any species to pose a significant threat to its region of space after achieving warp-capability."

"And large masses of objects …"

"Would potentially imply a response involving a good deal of force," she concluded for him.

"Maybe we're overreacting here," he said, once again wiping his hand over his face. "Maybe this is just a tool for first contact, a way to make sure they're ready to communicate with us when the time comes."

"Transport of large masses would likely not be required as a first response," T'Pol replied. "First contact through remote communication would be much more effective, and less expensive."

"The Vulcans did it in person," Trip pointed out. "Maybe this is just their way of putting a ship into place …"

T'Pol shook her head. "Unlikely. Vulcan was nearby, and we did all of our monitoring with spacecraft, manned or unmanned. That would not be practical at great distances. And this device is designed to work over great distances indeed …"

He groaned. "So. If we're right, two possibilities that we can see. One, this is a staging ground for first contact …"

"Or two, this is a staging ground for pre-emptive destruction of Earth by a species of vastly superior technological achievement," T'Pol concluded for him.

… TBC


	11. Chapter 11

Fix the Finale Fic

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: All belongs to whoever inherited the franchise -- not mine, though they really really don't deserve it now .

A/N: Moving on from TATV – for those of you who insist it's canon … well, read on.

********

Chapter 11

Brodeur, although concerned, had initially been unconvinced by their recent conclusions. "You've made a number of assumptions here, big ones," he pointed out. "You don't even know that this is a transporter, forget about its purpose."

"If we have even a chance of being right …" Tucker pointed out grimly, standing in front of Brodeur's desk with his arms crossed over his chest.

Brodeur sighed. "Then we cannot afford to wait to find out."

"No matter how valuable the technology is, and how much we might wish to preserve it," T'Pol agreed, "the risks are huge if we allow this facility to power up further."

"There's not much left to go," Tucker continued. "One or two more stages at most. Then it's active. And at this rate, we're talking a few days if we're lucky."

"What do you propose?" Brodeur sat back in his chair and looked back and forth between the two of them. He seemed to have grown used to dealing with them as though they were a virtually a single voice.

Tucker reached over to the screen and punched up the schematics that they had managed to produce so far on the device. He pointed to several locations around the giant ring "There are a number of critical energy paths, we believe. Here," he pointed, "and here. It might not be sufficient to take out one of them, likely there are backup systems designed in – if you're planning a facility to last thousands of years, you build in some redundancy and self-repair capabilities."

"So, we have to take out several paths - but once we take out its ability to manage energy, it becomes inactive." Brodeur frowned thoughtfully.

"Yes, and if we're careful, we leave the remainder of the device intact for further study."

Brodeur looked at T'Pol. "What do you think?"

"It should suffice to disable the device," she agreed. "But we do not know the implications in their entirety. For example, do we know if this can be done safely? There are massive energy flows involved here, and we do not have time to determine how to route them. Further, will our tampering with the device set off defensive or alerting systems? Nothing we have done so far has been designed to interfere with the device's performance in such a manner. There may be consequences we have not yet anticipated."

"What can we do to mitigate the risks?" Brodeur turned back to Tucker.

"Of setting off defensive systems? Nothing," he replied. "We wouldn't know where to start, we haven't characterized any of the subsidiary systems, we focussed strictly on the high energy and information processing functions as being the core of the device. As far as the energy flows go, we can spend more time coming up with a safer plan for routing the energies, but the longer we take …"

"The greater the probability the device will activate before we're done," Brodeur finished for him. "So what do you propose?"

"Firstly, we evacuate the station of all but the essential personnel to execute the plan. How long would that take?" Tucker asked.

"How far away to be safe?" Brodeur pulled up his evacuation plan on the screen.

T'Pol replied, "Even if the evacuation vehicles are appropriately shielded, high orbit is probably insufficient."

Brodeur looked a bit shaken. "You mean the moon itself is at risk?"

She nodded. "There is enough energy involved to significantly destabilize the surface; a large-scale disruption in a single location could cause tectonic forces that could break the frozen crust apart entirely. We do not have time to model the outcomes…"

"But they don't sound good. So, even once we've got everyone on board the evacuation vessels, several hours more to evacuate to a sufficient distance. Who stays behind?" He leaned back in his chair and scrutinized them both.

Tucker frowned. He did not enjoy these types of decisions. "I believe we could set up an automated destruction sequence," he replied. "One person could do it."

"However, the odds of success would be much higher with two," T'Pol finished for him. "Mr. Tucker and myself. We have already prepared the plan between us and know all the relevant details. We can work most effectively as a team, we have the technical experience, and we have both memorized all of the relevant schematics. We are ready now."

Tucker glared at her. However, he knew enough not to contradict her; he could read her clearly through the bond, and there was no point in arguing. She would not leave without him, and he was in no position to force her. Anyway, he had to concede she was right; they were the most effective team possible. The combination of decades of scientific and engineering experience with a telepathic connection was difficult to beat.

Brodeur pursed his lips. "Okay. Give me a few minutes."

Tucker nodded. "But not too many," he commented, motioning T'Pol in front of him to the door. "We haven't got a lot of time to spare."

Brodeur waved them out, his mind clearly already turning over the ramifications of the decision.

They retired to Tucker's quarters by unspoken consensus. After standing undecided for a moment, Tucker locked the door behind them. "T'Pol …"

"Do not say it," she interrupted. "I will not argue with you about this. I am staying."

"I agree," he replied, with a rueful grin. "I'm not arguing."

She looked vaguely nonplussed. "I am sorry. What were you intending to say?"

"I was just going to tell you that, well," he paused and took her hands in his, "I'm sure glad we had the chance to be really married, even if it was only for a couple of days."

"You sound as though you don't believe we will survive," she said, caressing the back of his hands with her thumbs.

"The odds aren't high," he pointed out. "The most likely scenario is a very big boom, with us in the middle of it."

"We could still try to trigger it remotely," she said. They had discussed these options already, but reconsideration of old decisions was always beneficial.

"The odds of failure are too high, and it would take too long" he replied, retreading ground they'd gone over before. "If we evacuated to a safe enough distance, and failed, it would take too long to get back to try again. We may only have one shot at this, and it could use up all the time we've got. We need to be here to fix whatever problems come up."

"By that logic, we should keep a bigger team behind on Europa."

"No," he stated firmly. "You and me, no more. It's a small risk of failure - between us, we've got all the skills needed and more."

"So it's decided," she reiterated.

"Nothing's changed," Tucker agreed. "The plan's good."

They stood silently for a moment, each absorbed in thoughts of the hours ahead, knowing that Brodeur would approve the plan. Brodeur's appearance as a fussy administrator was a neat disguise that disarmed his co-workers, hiding integrity and a shrewd mind. And there was, in truth, no other option that balanced all the risks.

"This could be it," he murmured, as their minds traced the same path to the nearly inevitable outcome.

"It will be for the greater good," she reiterated, thinking of the last time Tucker's life had apparently been sacrificed. "To save Earth. Together."

He smiled, a gentle, wistful smile. "Together, _thy'la_," he repeated. "Always."

Her heart broke, then, while her soul felt finally freed. "We are one, unto death, _telsu_," she said, repeating the words of the Vulcan bonding ceremony.

He released her hands, and turned away, surreptitiously wiping his eyes before he crossed his arms across his chest. "I can't help feeling responsible for you being here," he said, allowing a bit of anger at their situation to escape.

"Trip," she remonstrated, "at virtually every stage of our relationship, I have ultimately been the one that created the opportunities for further intimacy. You can hardly be blamed for my willingness to choose you as mate, for my appearance here, or for the dictates of Vulcan biology that made it imperative that I be here now."

"Okay, okay," he acquiesced, turning back to face her, "but can't I take a little credit for some part of this?" He grinned weakly.

She reached out and pulled him to her, wrapping him in a tight embrace, her cheek against his chest. She murmured, "You may take credit for being irresistible, both in soul and body, and far more patient with me than I have ever deserved." He stroked her hair, silently, and she felt more than heard the tightness in his throat and chest that he was trying to hide.

"How long do you suppose we have till he decides?" he asked quietly, kissing the top of her head gently.

"Not more than an hour," she replied. "We should spend it reviewing the plan."

"You said it yourself, darlin'," he pointed out. "We're already ready."

She admitted to herself that she shared his desire to have their last moments together be as intimate as possible, to make up for all of the lost time. A small smile that he could not see formed on her lips. "Very well," she said, pulling back from their embrace, "but I suggest we leave our clothes well organized should Brodeur be ready for us before we are ready for him."

He grinned, his mood suddenly improving considerably, and began to strip. "We'll have a few minutes to get ourselves decent, it'll take him longer to arrange the evacuation than it will for us to be ready." He grabbed her, half-undressed, and pulled her onto the bed.

She had to admit that it was indeed highly pleasurable to permit their exploration of each other to be somewhat slower than on their previous two occasions, both of which had been marked by over-eagerness on her part, driven by her lack of practice at controlling this aspect of her emotions. Tucker, despite the urgency he must be feeling, covered every surface of her body with slow, deliberate attention, until she felt sure that hours must have passed as her anticipation built.

However it was finally too much for her, and with a most uncharacteristic growl, she flipped him over onto his back and took control of the tempo. This time, however, she was momentarily in sufficient control of herself to use the bond to advantage – she placed her fingers against his temple, and allowed the flow of thoughts and emotions along the bond to be amplified through the contact point.

His eyes widened as he truly began to feel the depth of her need for him, body and soul. Still not knowing entirely how it was done, he did his best to reciprocate, with a torrent of love and desire that apparently reached her, for he could feel a surge of feedback that stripped away any control he had remaining. At the moment of release, he almost forgot who and where he was – only that they were each other's, totally, with no possibility of doubt.

Some minutes later, he began to resume some semblance of rational thought. "So," he commented, "Did you really have to wait till now for that? Do you know how much time we've wasted?"

"I was a fool," she stated. It was time they would never get back, they both knew, time that seemed so valuable with the risks they faced ahead.

"I'm going to remind you of that every chance I get till I die of old age," he murmured, "surrounded by my pointy-eared grandchildren."

She allowed a frisson of hope to suffuse her that she quickly suppressed. She was still a Vulcan, and she knew the odds of surviving long enough to have more attempts to produce genetically improbable offspring were not high.

Just then, Brodeur's voice sounded out over the intercom. It was about to begin.

… TBC


	12. Chapter 12

Fix the Finale Fic

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Rating: G

Disclaimer: All belongs to whoever inherited the franchise -- not mine, though they really really don't deserve it now .

A/N: Moving on from TATV – for those of you who insist it's canon … well, read on.

********

Chapter 12

Tucker clasped Brodeur's hand as he prepared to board the last evacuation vessel at the launch bay. "It's been an honour, Mister Brodeur," he said.

Brodeur frowned at him. "I expect to see you here in one piece when I get back, Chief, and don't leave a mess for me to clean up either." He turned to T'Pol, and in a surprising gesture, took her hand and placed a gentlemanly kiss on it. "I know Vulcans don't generally appreciate this kind of thing, T'sai T'Pol, but somehow I get the feeling you've acclimatized pretty well to our foibles." He glanced sideways at Tucker and then back at her. "You make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"I have considerable practice at that," T'Pol replied dryly. "Thank you, and we will see you in a few hours."

Brodeur nodded, and paused for a moment to look over the launch bay, as though he were giving it a final farewell. He then turned and boarded the vessel, the final two security personnel boarding behind him. Tucker and T'Pol retired to the control room. As the doors opened and the ship departed, Tucker sighed and punched in the sequence to close the doors and repressurize the bay.

He gave one last look out the launch bay windows past the icy crags on Europa's frozen surface, at the rapidly dwindling light reflecting from the surface of the evacuation vessel as it departed.

One small ship remained, a maintenance vessel, big enough for the two of them, just. It had no capability for interplanetary travel; if they had to use it to evacuate, it would just get them into a stable orbit around Jupiter to await rescue. Neither one had discussed the fact that if evacuation was necessary, the vessel could well be too slow to escape the shock wave. There was no other option.

"Shall we begin?" T'Pol enquired gently, sensing his wistful mood.

"Yeah, let's get to it," he replied. They walked without speaking down the halls that seemed to echo their footsteps eerily now that there was no one remaining within the station but them. They entered the central chamber, and both paused for a moment to contemplate the immense, pulsing ring of energy that had activated with the last stage.

"Okay," Tucker said. "I'll position the charges, and you configure the detonators." Their plan was crude, but they had little time for elegance. They had identified five locations that appeared to carry critical energy flows, between various components of the device. Each was shielded, but the explosive charges they planned to use had enough energy to overcome the shielding, and destroy the energy transmission matrix within, hopefully without having enough energy to destroy the functional, connected components of the alien device nearby.

That part of the plan was simple enough. What they could not predict was how their tampering with the device might affect other connected systems, for massive amounts of energy flowed within – despite the fact that the device appeared capable of far more than it should with the energy it had, that energy was still enough to level the station and everything within thousands of metres.

It was clear that the main body of the device constituted the energy reactor that would power the giant transporter when it activated. The transporter consisted of two parts: the long-range portion, that would bring the pattern matrix of whatever it was designed to transport from vast distances; and the short-range portion, that would pluck the atoms needed to complete the reconstitution from the moon within which it was lodged. The transporter itself was directly connected to the reactor, while the transmission array was remotely located some hundreds of metres away. This much they had ascertained.

However, there were two other unconnected systems that undoubtedly served other subsidiary functions that had not yet been identified. But Tucker was convinced that no one would have gone to all the trouble to build this device without designing into it some sort of self-defence systems. Following the logic the device's designers had used to trigger it in the first place, namely the presence of significant high-energy human technological activity in the outer planets of the solar system, it was likely that the self-defence systems would not engage until sufficient activity triggered them here. And Tucker figured that blowing off a few charges in the vicinity of the device was a pretty likely trigger.

They worked with a minimum of discussion, as usual each feeling the other's intentions without asking. They had the charges in place and the detonators programmed within twenty minutes. It was now a question of waiting till they received the signal that the evacuation vessels had reached a safe distance.

They sat in the command centre for a few minutes without speaking; in unspoken acquiescence, they had dimmed the lights to give an illusion of intimacy.

"We've got four hours, minimum," Tucker pointed out. "Like something to eat?"

"I am not hungry," T'Pol replied, without elaboration.

He sighed. "Neither am I, but it'll pass the time, and maybe it'll help in the crisis to have a bit of food in us." He departed, and returned a few minutes later with a selection of somewhat edible foods from the dispensary. T'Pol accepted his selection for her without comment, and they ate for a while in companionable silence.

"You know," Tucker said suddenly, waving his fork, "maybe by blowing this thing up we'll just be proving to them that we're as dangerous as they think we are."

"Perhaps," T'Pol replied. "But any intelligent species would recognize the apparent threat that this facility would imply, and would arrange for some form of communication to indicate otherwise if they so desired. The absence of any such indication, and the manner in which the facility was hidden, does not imply friendly intentions."

"No, it doesn't, does it," he agreed, and finished his meal without further comment, then watching as she finished hers more slowly, with small, careful bites.

After she put down her utensils, he said. "Want to play 'What if'?"

She frowned slightly. "I do not know that pastime." When she first knew him, she would have assumed that this was a frivolous attempt to waste time. However, she now knew that his sometimes apparently superficial conversation often hid a much deeper intent.

"I start by saying something like – what if you'd never been posted to Enterprise? Where do you think you'd have ended up?"

This type of activity was unusual for a Vulcan; while speculating over possible outcomes in the future had obvious benefits, reanalyzing events from one's personal life was much less common, when there appeared to be no obvious lesson to be learned. However, she humoured him. "I would have remained on Earth, likely ending up in some sort of diplomatic role. I had, even by that time, formed an attachment to humans, although I had not yet recognized it. Since postings to Earth were not particularly prized, there would have been little competition had I chosen to stay. I might have been ambassador, some day."

He grinned, "Maybe you still will."

"I doubt it," she replied. "I have burned a great many bridges."

"Still," he said, "I like the idea of you replacing Soval. We could have met anyway, hmm? Okay," he continued, "your turn."

After a momentary pause, she offered, "What if you had decided to remain on Columbia instead of returning to Enterprise?"

"Oooh," he winced. "That one's nasty." He leaned back, his hands behind his head, and poked his tongue into his cheek. "I don't know. I don't think I would have stayed for long. It wasn't home, not like Enterprise. Probably would have ended up back on Earth in the warp development program eventually."

"In which case I would have met you there, when I returned to become ambassador," she added smoothly. "For I doubt I would have remained on Enterprise once you were gone."

He leaned forward and smiled. "You wouldn't?"

"I did not possess any particular devotion to space travel," she admitted. "I had not pursued it as a career, it was thrust upon me by a series of events … I remained on Enterprise because it was an interesting place to pursue my scientific career, but also because of her Captain, her crew, and of course you, although I did not care to admit it." She paused, remembering her conflicted feelings at that time. "When you left for Columbia, everyone changed."

"Changed? What do you mean?" He looked startled, as though he had never truly considered how his departure might have affected the crew of Enterprise.

"The Captain was introverted and short-tempered. Mr. Reed, I believe now, blamed me for your departure, and treated me rather coolly. Despite Mr. Kelby's best efforts, engineering was not a particularly pleasant environment. Dr. Phlox kept scrutinizing me as though I were a specimen he was observing to see whether it would sprout wings." She frowned slightly as she recalled just how uncomfortable she had felt, knowing that despite Trip's denials, he had left because of her, and Phlox knew it; he had undoubtedly been waiting for her to have some sort of breakdown. She suppressed a sigh. "And … I had not realized just how much I depended on you for social interaction." After a moment, she continued, "I was lonely."

He took her hand, and rubbed it gently, as if to make up for his unconscionable absence that time seven years ago. "God, so was I. I could hardly make myself get up in the morning, knowing that I wouldn't see you. I thought that once I was gone, I could stop thinking about you, and get on with things. But I just ended up thinking about you all the time … daydreaming, imagining conversations with you … but I guess they weren't all imaginary, hmm?" He stopped to remember, for a moment. "Anyway, I guess you figured out that I'd pretty much given up on the idea of being away from you, it was just making things worse."

"It was the bond, of course," she murmured. "Its purpose is to keep Vulcan mates together."

"Partly I expect it was," he agreed. "But you know, I wonder if I could have stayed away from you for long anyway. Always took quite a few kicks to the head from a girl I was soft on before I'd really give up - a bit of a glutton for punishment, I guess. And you were a once-in-a-lifetime kinda thing," he admitted, giving her hand one final squeeze. "All right, my turn again." He leaned back and squinted at her for a good minute, before apparently steeling himself. "What if Koss hadn't let you out of the marriage?"

She was unable to hide her dismay. "Trip, that is unfair."

"There's no unfair in this game, that's the point," he replied. "But you for sure don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to," he conceded. "And if you don't want to go there, I guess that's okay. But I guess what I was really asking, is, what would have happened? Because we were bonded already then, weren't we?"

She nodded, at a bit of a loss. "I do not know. I am unaware of any case in which a woman has been bonded to another man before her wedding; normally it could not happen without the woman knowing, and then, of course, the marriage would have been refused." She shook her head. "The bond would have revealed itself in time, I think, if I had remained on Vulcan with Koss, away from you. And if I had not …"

"If you'd stayed on Enterprise, but married to him, you mean?" Trip prompted.

"I do not care to think of it," she said, closing down the line of inquiry. She did not wish to reveal to Trip what would have happened when Koss entered his _pon farr_, and the possible outcome had she and Trip been bonded at the time, which would have almost certainly ended in someone's death, likely her bondmate's.

He could tell that she was disturbed, and decided to let it drop. "Okay, never mind then. Have you got another one?"

"Trip, I recognize your intent was to provide some distraction as well as the opportunity for us to perhaps get to know one another better, but …"

He sighed. "All right. What do you want to do?"

"We could spend some time reviewing the secondary system data," T'Pol suggested. "As you pointed out, we know little enough of the other portions of the device; we might still find some piece of information that would help."

"You're such a romantic," he said dryly. As she began to protest, he silenced her. "No, you're absolutely right. I guess I was just being silly." He reached over to the nearest monitor and punched up the limited schematics they had available on the secondary systems.

"Wait," she said, putting her hand over his. "It was not a silly idea, Trip. I am not yet fully comfortable with how an intimate relationship should work," she conceded. "It was helpful. But I feel like we must be doing something, not just waiting to see if we will die. I do not want to die now, not when we have just found each other."

He took her hand in his, and studied it for a moment. Then, suddenly determined, he stated, "We are not going to die. We're going to spend the next few hours studying every last detail of this thing, and we're going to beat it. And when this is all done, we're going to take a nice long vacation somewhere where they've never heard of transdimensional aliens, or Klingons, or Romulans, or Ring-builders," he waved at the glowing torus below them, "and we're going to spend some time just you and me, getting to know each other. Deal?" He looked her directly in the eyes, as if daring her to disagree.

"Deal," she replied after a moment. He leaned forward to give her a brief peck on the lips, and then turned back to his monitor, all business again.

**********

The hours until Brodeur notified them that the evacuation ships were in position sped by far too quickly. T'Pol was sure they had looked over such a small fraction of the data that it could not possibly have made any difference. "Perhaps we should take a few more hours," she suggested, her anxiety threatening to surface. "We have not reviewed nearly enough …"

"It'll have to do," Tucker replied grimly. "We can't afford to wait. It could happen any time."

She nodded, stifling her indecision. "Very well."

They retreated from the command centre back to the launch bay. They had configured the monitors in the launch bay as remote monitors for the central core and all of the monitoring systems in the command centre. This was the compromise on safety they had agreed to with Brodeur; although they would not themselves evacuate the facility, they would trigger the detonation from as close to their escape route as possible.

Tucker opened the clothing lockers, and they both donned EV suits that would provide them a few minutes of additional protection from fire and radiation if things went wrong.

"Read me?" Tucker asked through the comm. system.

_With no difficulty, t'hy'la_, she replied mentally, and he smiled at her as he felt her thought tug at him.

"All right, then, let's do it. Hold on tight." He punched the screen. There was no delay – the charges detonated with a concussion that caused the ground to kick beneath them as the station briefly left its moorings off the icy surface. They both staggered briefly but remained upright. Recovering, they both attempted to follow the readings that streamed across the monitors in front of them. Not surprisingly, the monitors within the central core had blacked out; they could not see directly what had happened.

"So far, so good," Tucker muttered. "The energy flow has stopped. The chamber has breached though, we've lost atmosphere."

"The energy flow has stopped," T'Pol agreed, "but it is building up here." She pointed to one of the readouts. "There must be a source of stored energy we did not identify, and there is now nowhere for it to go."

"Damn," Tucker said through his teeth. "How did we miss that? How much is there?"

"Unknown," T'Pol replied. "The levels are not yet unsafe, but if it continues, there will be enough energy to potentially cause a secondary explosion within perhaps fifteen minutes."

"How big an explosion?" he asked, frantically punching numbers into his PADD.

"Big enough," she replied, tersely. "But it might still stop."

"And it might not," Tucker said grimly. "We need to find a way to dissipate it." Although they had likely disabled the device, it was still crucial to preserve as much of it as possible, in order to obtain the most possible information on its builders. And fifteen minutes was quite possibly not sufficient time for them to achieve a safe distance regardless. Their best course was to stop the secondary explosion.

"The only way would be to route it out," T'Pol stated. "And while that might not cause an explosion, there's still enough energy there to melt the entire core area, and a good part of the ice mantle of the moon."

"We can send it up, though," he pointed out.

"Into space?" she queried. "How?"

"I'm working on it," he replied. "Come on, we've got to be there before we can do anything."

She followed, hampered by her EV suit, and clumsily climbed after him onto the small, motorized cart they had positioned there for a rapid return if needed.

Halfway there, they encountered the bulkhead doors that had closed when atmospheric containment had been breached. As T'Pol manually defeated the automatic controls, Tucker quickly drove their cart through; resisting the inward rush of air, T'Pol managed to close the door behind them. Less than a minute later, he stopped outside the door, unable to drive closer due to the debris from the door, which had blown out. There was only dim emergency lighting within and an ominous green pulsing glow.

They climbed over the shattered door and briefly surveyed the scene using their emergency lights.

The charges had been effectively placed, causing minimal damage to the adjacent parts of the giant torus, which were effectively shielded. The human-built structures had not fared so well; the windows into the command centre had also been blown out, the floor had heaved from the concussion, and the roof of the chamber had five scorched holes in it through which the dark sky above could be seen. Finally, one small portion of the ring glowed a sickly green, pulsing slowly but with a slight increase in frequency and brightness that was perceptible even during the few seconds they took to observe it.

"What is your plan?" T'Pol asked Tucker. He was silent for a moment.

"We've already got the holes we need," he replied, indicating the damaged roof. "All we have to do is direct the energy that way."

After another moment, she asked ominously, "You do not have a plan, do you?"

"I'm still working on it," he admitted.

The truncated device in front of them continued to pulse with increased frequency. T'Pol examined her remote monitoring device. "The energy buildup is increasing exponentially," she said, managing to keep her voice steady. "We have less time than I predicted."

"How much less?" he asked, feeling her anxiety even without hearing it in her voice.

"We must leave. NOW," she said grabbing his arm.

He hesitated, and then ran after her. They climbed onto the cart and Tucker gunned it towards the launch bay. T'Pol jumped from the cart as they reached the bulkheads, to hit the manual override. Just as the doors opened, the floor buckled again beneath them, knocking T'Pol to her feet and toppling the cart sideways, throwing Tucker onto the floor beside it.

The rush of air through the bulkhead doors pushed against the cart as it lay tilted on its side; for a moment, T'Pol watched in a daze as the cart teetered and then tipped over onto Tucker with a crash. _T'hy'la!_ she cried out wordlessly, but received no answer.

Attempting to steady herself against the inrushing wind, she crawled across the floor to him, where he lay pinned beneath the cart. The full weight of the cart lay on his legs below the knees. He was motionless and pale. Additionally, she could see a hole in his suit at the thigh, just above where the cart had him pinned; as she watched, blood began to ooze out the hole, spattering into the vacuum that was forming around them.

The Vulcan equivalent of adrenaline coursed through her veins. Suddenly she felt clear-headed, calm, purposeful. She extracted the patch kit from her suit pocket, and applied it to the hole. It sealed, despite the bloody mess about it, just as it was designed to do. She checked his air supply. It would suffice for now, she could top it up later if necessary from her own. Then she stood, and with a strength she would not have believed she possessed, she picked up the cart and placed a piece of debris from the floor beneath it; it held long enough for her to pull him out before collapsing again. Momentarily exhausted, she looked behind them. She could see a red glow now in the dark distance, not a good sign. There was potentially still enough oxygen flowing around the core through the open bulkhead to sustain a further fire or explosion.

Pulling herself up again, she dragged him out through the bulkhead doors, fighting against the inrushing wind. On the other side, she quickly hit the control, and the doors closed. Momentarily, she leaned against the doors in exhaustion and relief as the wind stopped. Hopefully, the absence of further oxygen would delay any subsequent explosion.

After a moment, she picked Tucker up and threw him over her shoulder. It was not the most secure method of carrying him, for although her strength was more than sufficient, his greater size and the bulk of the EV suit made it difficult to balance. Nevertheless, with grim determination, she strode down the corridor towards the launch bay.

There had been a few less than optimum moments when she feared she would drop him, injuring him again, but she had successfully negotiated the final few turns with her bondmate draped over her shoulder. The launch bay was already nearly depressurized, and the atmosphere generators would be working some time before they could replace the lost air. She laid Tucker gently beside their escape pod, and punched the door open. She carried him within, laying him in the co-pilot's seat and strapping him down.

Another rumble shook the floor of the launch bay. There was no time to do things properly. She punched the power up sequence and remotely activated the bay doors without bothering with total depressurization. The rush of the remaining air tugged the pod towards the bay doors even as she activated the thrusters. She activated the main drive while they were still within the launch bay, scorching the floor. Brodeur would not be happy with her, she thought distractedly, as she skimmed the pod past the still opening launch doors.

As the craft pulled away from the surface of the moon, she began to count silently, pushing the drive past the red line, her eyes glued to the craft's sensor readout. As she reached twenty-one, the sensors hysterically registered a disruption of massive proportions. The pod bucked and yawed, as the moon beneath them objected to the injury caused by her thoughtless visitors. T'Pol's view ahead was obscured by ice crystals that suddenly surrounded her, flying past at breakneck speeds.

Although she could not see it, she could imagine the sight. The explosion and subsequent fire would have heated the icy surface of Europa well past the boiling point of the frozen water that formed its crust. As the crust boiled off, it revealed the liquid ocean that lay below, heated by the tidal action of Jupiter upon this uniquely aqueous moon. The entire facility would have sunk beneath the water, further heating the ocean. Massive quantities of water were boiling off now, shooting out into space, freezing again into ice moments after leaving the surface.

Not enough momentum from the escaping gases to significantly disrupt Europa's orbit. But plenty to cause significant damage to a vessel caught in their midst, that had not yet escaped her minimal gravity well, and was not designed to withstand any form of significant atmospheric encounter. Her fingers danced over the thruster controls, as she attempted to stabilize their trajectory. The sensors bleated out yet another warning, and her eyes widened. Before she had time to react, a wave of energy hit the pod so hard she could feel the shell crack around them even through her EV suit. The pod tumbled and as it pulled apart, her final thought before the blackness hit her was of him. _Together, till death, telsu_.

… TBC


	13. Chapter 13

Fix the Finale Fic

The Ring of Truth

By Evalyn A.

Rating: G

Disclaimer: All belongs to whoever inherited the franchise -- not mine, though they really really don't deserve it now .

A/N: Moving on from TATV – for those of you who insist it's canon … well, read on.

********

Epilogue

_Six months later …_

Archer looked at the card in his hand, and then gazed with silent contemplation out the window of his office. The memory of that day six months ago, when he had been informed of his two best friends' deaths, came flooding back to him.

**********

He had been working through lunch, when his flustered aide-de-camp had entered. "Sir, the Minister's here to see you."

Archer's eyebrows raised – unannounced visits by politicians were highly unusual and rarely boded well. "Show her in, Lieutenant."

The Minister entered, and took his hand. "Admiral," she said, inclining her head, "I'm sorry to drop by without an appointment."

"Not a problem, ma'am," he replied, "Always happy to see you."

She walked over to the window. "You have a beautiful view of the bay," she commented. The morning fog had just been blown away by a brisk wind, leaving a clear, chilly day behind it, whitecaps forming on the bay.

"Thank you ma'am," Archer replied, and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"I suppose you know I'm not here to admire the view," she continued, turning around to face him. "I'll get to the point. Several days ago, one of our research teams located in the outer solar system was able to stop what was almost certainly a grave threat to Earth. As you might have guessed, this incident won't be for public consumption, and as a result, we won't be able to honour the heroes who made it possible. Unfortunately, in countering this threat, two of the team were killed." She paused to take a breath, and then looked at him sympathetically. "Chief Engineer Tucker and Commander T'Pol did not survive."

Archer's expression turned grim, as he turned away, lips tightened. After a lengthy pause, he asked, "What was T'Pol doing there?" in a steely voice.

The Minister frowned. "I know this must be difficult for you, Jon, but I was hoping you could tell me," she replied. "No one seems to know how she got there, or how she even knew where to go. She arrived just a few days before." There was an awkward pause, and then the Minister continued, her expression turning darker, "There was no doubt that her presence was instrumental in ensuring that the project did not fail. Perhaps if she had been included earlier …"

It was apparent to Archer that the Minister in charge of Interplanetary Affairs, who ultimately held under her purview all of Starfleet's operations, as well as those of Reed's shadowy friends, did not agree with the special operatives that had prevented T'Pol's involvement. The relationship between Starfleet and the Federation was an uneasy one, for Starfleet reported to Earth government rather than the Federation council, and conflicts in purpose still arose from time to time.

Archer was silent for a moment, and then answered her original line of questioning. "I don't know how she got there. But she was a determined and resourceful person. If she'd figured out something was going on, she wouldn't have stopped till she'd gotten to the bottom of it."

The Minister stared at his back, tense and unyielding. "Commander T'Pol had you listed as her executor," she stated, when no further information was forthcoming.

Archer turned back to face her, his face locked in a grim mask. "Yes, that's right. I'll take care of following up on her affairs, Minister, thank you."

She stood, uncertain for a moment as to whether there was more to be gained by continuing the conversation, and then inclined her head in acknowledgment of his implied dismissal. "My personal regrets for your loss, Admiral," she concluded, and departed his office.

Archer stared after her, a frown remaining on his face, and then with a small sigh, he relaxed and shook his head, his expression changing to one of rueful amusement. "I swear, you two are going to get me in more trouble dead than alive …"

Returning to his desk, he paged through to his aide requesting that he not be disturbed for half an hour, and then sat down to review again the communication he had received two days before.

Trip's face, somewhat grimy and bruised, appeared on the screen. "Jon, I hope you get this before Starfleet gets to you. I just wanted to let you know that T'Pol and I are all right," he paused, shifted and winced, "at least, more or less. The rumours of our deaths will have been greatly exaggerated. Just, for a while though, I'd appreciate if you wouldn't notify the brass?" He paused again, searching for words. "They'll tell you that our mission was a success, well, mostly anyway. No loss of life. It could have gone a lot worse."

He rubbed his face, which clearly look haggard from injury or lack of sleep. "The thing is, I'm tired, Jon. Tired of working non-stop to save Earth from yet another disaster. Seems as long as there's space out there, there'll be somebody trying to cause trouble. I need a break, time to do a few things. Work on some ideas I've got, and spend some quality time with T'Pol. She's agreed to take a bit of a break too." He smiled a small smile, and continued, "By the way, seems we've been married, in Vulcan law anyway, for about the last seven years. I know this is kind of a lousy way to break the news, but I'll tell you all about it sometime when we can do it properly, over a drink and a game."

Archer's jaw had dropped as he listened to the last few sentences; he wondered how exactly he had missed the true nature of what had been going on with his two dearest friends and closest co-workers. He'd noticed some ups and downs in their relationship, and suspected perhaps a brief romantic involvement, but he'd never suspected the depths to which it had apparently gone.

In the meantime, Trip's voice had continued on while he was dealing with the shock of this revelation. "Anyway, T'Pol and I have decided to go somewhere nice and quiet. One of Malcolm's friends has gotten me a nice new identity – oh, by the way, can you tell Malcolm thanks in spades for the fellow he arranged as T'Pol's transport? We'd both be goners now if he hadn't stuck around. I guess those former spooks just never get over being nosy – he plucked us out of space when our craft broke up, not sure how, we were both out of it. Apparently he's pretty good at staying under the sensors, because nobody detected him in all the excitement. He stayed quiet about it too; we weren't in too good a shape when he recovered us, and he had to wait for T'Pol to come around to ask her what to do. He didn't want to contact the authorities, not knowing how much trouble T'Pol might be in." He smiled, recalling. "So it was a kind of a blessing, everyone probably thinking we were dead. I know you'll have to tell the Starfleet brass eventually. Use your judgement on that one; just give us a bit of a break."

At that moment, he heard T'Pol's voice just offscreen. "Please give Jon my regards, and ask him to ensure that my affairs are properly looked after."

Trip smiled, and added, "By which she means, don't freeze her accounts. We'll be needing to live off her savings for a while. But I expect we can pick up a bit of work if we need it to make ends meet."

He smiled again at – his wife? Jon mused – offscreen, and continued, "Where was I? Oh, yeah, please be sure to tell everyone else that we're all right. My family, especially, and Malcolm, Hoshi, Travis, Soval – oh, and tell Dr. Phlox that we're counting on him to keep working on that fertilization procedure that his counterpart from the other Enterprise had perfected. We're planning on trying real hard to start a family when things have settled down a bit, whenever he figures he's ready." He frowned, and added, "But I doubt if we'll be settling on Earth any time soon. There's still too much leftover hysteria, and after what happened the last time …"

Clearly, he was recalling the incident years ago when Paxton's group had created them a child only to allow it to die, to prove that the human race was being destroyed by dilution with alien culture. Archer frowned himself, knowing too well that such hysteria was all too ready to surface again in a small minority of people, enough to cause plenty of trouble for his two star-crossed friends.

"So anyway, we'll be out of touch for a while, but don't forget us, okay? Just – don't try to find us for a while. Not unless it's important – and remember, it's somebody else's turn to save the planet." Trip grinned, and reached towards the panel. "Take care, Jon." And the recording ended.

**********

That had been six months ago, and Archer had heard nothing more from the two of them, nothing till now. He looked at the old-fashioned postcard in his hand that had printed off his private line while he had been gone overnight; his aide had placed it on his desk for him to find when he arrived.

The card showed a white sandy beach under an evening sky, a tropical bluish-green, lit by a distinctive set of moons whose features he was sure he recognized. On the beach, walking away, were two people dressed in summer clothes whose hands were just touching: a man wearing a garish Hawaiian print shirt, and a bronze-skinned woman, much shorter, whose upswept ears were barely visible if you looked closely.

On the back of the card, was the handwritten statement, "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here."

Suddenly, Archer grinned, and punched his intercom.

"Lieutenant, I've decided to take a little vacation. See what you can do about booking me a trip to Risa …"

The End


End file.
